This reminds me of a thread over on FARK from a couple of weeks ago where right-wing anti-every-tax-ever dipshits were agog at the idea of using taxes as incentives. I’m sure they don’t mind the mortgage deduction, child credit, or charity deduction on their 1040s, though…
Anywho, yeah the soda tax is probably somewhat regressive. If you assume that the average bottom-income-quintile person drinks about as much soda per year as the average top-quintile person, then it’s slightly regressive due to a larger share of the bottom-quintile person’s spendable cash going towards the tax (at $0.01/oz, we’re talking $43/year at one 12oz soda per day, or $117/yr for a 32oz Big Gulp per day). If you assume that the average bottom-quintile person drinks more soda than the average top-quintile person, then it’s more regressive.
But the thing is, not all regressive taxes are Bad Things. Nothing in economics is black-and-white anyhow, and tax incentives especially so. There are massive externalities (“costs we all pay for whether we like it or not” for you right-wing dipshits) associated with excess sugar consumption and, most importantly, there are easily available substitutes for sugary drinks.
The presumption of the beverage industry shills is that people will continue to drink just as much soda as always and therefore this regressive tax will “hurt poor people”. When in fact, since it is an incentive to purchase healthier and easily obtained alternatives, it will in the long run help poor people and everybody else as well.
Also, as a related aside, some RWNJs will say “I don’t want the gubmint telling me how to live my life!!!111one!” Well good because that’s not what is happening. You can live however you want. Drink four Super Gulps before breakfast for all we care. But you are going to help pay for the external effects of your poor choices. No more freeloading on the rest of us.
The tobacco industry fought cigarette taxes using the same rhetoric. They were wrong, and PepsiCocaColaCo are wrong as well.
The problem with using the “tax incentive to make healthy choices” argument is it ignores other societal problems that face low income populations.
The idea behind taxing junk food/sugary drinks makes perfect sense to suburban consumers who can go to Whole Foods or other upscale grocery stores that have an abundance of “cheap” fresh produce and other “alternatives”, but go to many urban and lower income neighborhoods and you may have to rely solely on what the local corner bodegas have to offer, and that is usually cheap off brand soda and processed foods. Also, when you’re trying to stretch a paycheck, stuff that spoils quickly like vegetables and such give way to more shelf stable items that last longer. The “easily available healthy choices” can ,and often are, several miles away from them. It’s basically the same counter argument to why voter ID laws are bullshit, some people do not have access to what you take for granted. The problem of obesity is not going to be solved by “tax incentives”, until the supply problem is solved.
I’ve been in the situation where I wanted to make more healthy choices with my groceries, but getting those healthy options was only possible if I drove 30 minutes down the interstate to the next town over.
And yes, the evidence shows the “bottom-quintile” consumes far more soda/sugary drinks than the top.
The “easily available healthy choices” can [be], and often are, several miles away from them.
This is usually a good argument - yes, when people say, “Why are you eating processed food instead of fresh vegetables?”, it does indeed overlook that the poorest among us tend to live in food deserts and don’t always have fresh vegetables available (or the time/energy available to prepare them). But the alternative to soda is water. Regardless of income level, adults should be drinking water as their primary beverage, with anything else as an occasional treat. And outside of horrifying exceptions such as Flint, you can just get water from the tap.
Flint is an extreme case, but is not the only case of the local tap water being basically undrinkable in the nation (it’s not even the worst, just the one that has made the news). Heck, in places like NYC it can be on a building by building basis.
Long story short, “soda”/“junk food” taxes are borne by lower income earners, and are just as indefensible as “sales tax in place of income tax” and “voter ID is necessary because reasons”
[quote=“pandastirfry, post:3, topic:45584, full:true”]
The problem with using the “tax incentive to make healthy choices” argument is it ignores other societal problems that face low income populations. The idea behind taxing junk food/sugary drinks makes perfect sense to suburban consumers who can go to Whole Foods…The “easily available healthy choices” can ,and often are, several miles away from them.[/quote]
OK, well, I was not talking about junk food, only sugared sodas. I admit to not shopping often at the local corner bodega in lower-income neighborhoods, but I have yet to see a convenience store anywhere in my city - or anywhere I’ve lived or traveled, including some of the poorest areas of Mississipi - that does not have diet soda on the rack right next to the sugared variety. Or water. Or juice. Or tea. Etc. I said “easily available substitutes”, not “healthier” (though arguably the water or juice might be the healthiest choice).
I agree 100% with your comments regarding for example fresh produce vs. junk food. Not the topic, however.
??? You may have me confused with someone else. I am against voter ID laws, at least as every state has tried to implement them.
I’m genuinely interested in why you put scare quotes around “bottom-quintile”. This is an economic term of art, not an insult. In any case, my intuition was that soda consumption would be stronger among lower income individuals, but I didn’t do the research so I tried to cover all bases. I’ll take your word for the actual state of things.
FWIW I completely agree that sales taxes in lieu of income taxes is an indefensible proposition on the basis of its regressive nature. I see a large difference between that and a soda tax, however.
Perhaps a way forward in our discussion: are you in favor of repealing all cigarette taxes? Or if you are old enough, were you against levying them in the first place?
Here are three articles that discuss both sugared-beverage consumption and the effects of a tax on them. Not posting because I agree with all conclusions, just to provide some hard data.
http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v30/n3s/full/0803489a.html
Yeah, it’s a little crazy. We pay on both ends - subsidize cheap sugary food and pay for the health problems. How about instead of subsidizing HCFS we put that money into subsidizing delivery of fresh produce into low-income neighborhoods? That’d start to address some of pandastirfry’s concerns on the food side of things.
The difference between cigarette/alcohol taxes is that it is a definite “luxury” item.
Defacto saying “if you don’t like paying taxes on things more often purchased by lower-income earners, than make better choices you may not have in your area.” This of course leaves out the argument of smoking being a hazard to you and people around you, and the like.
I used voter ID as an example of a solution in search of a problem, like soda taxes. The impact these taxes would have on obesity is negligible, and they are regressive in nature.
They’ve tried to tie SNAP and food stamp benefits to similar “sugary drink/prossesed food” standards as this tax and they’ve lost every time. Taxing, is just trying to do it by the back door.
The problem isn’t just availability, it’s also price, quality and even the minimum wage… solving the obesity problem is not going to be solved by regressive consumption taxes that will only affect the people it’s supposed to help, or even by no longer subsidizing HFCS.
It’s a complex problem, that if it was as easy as “tax this and unfund that” it’d be solved already.
So alcohol is a luxury item, but Coke is not? Alright, let’s agree to disagree on that point.
Well there is something of a distinction that, in my view, leans in favor of the taxation route. If they disallow certain drinks from the SNAP program, that is the government saying “you cannot make choice X about what you drink” (I want to stay focused on sugary drinks right now; I think you and I are much closer to agreement on the food side). If instead they add a 12-cent tax to a 12oz sugared soda (but not diet! that’s important in my view, and set aside for the moment questions about health effects of calorie-free sodas), then the consumer still gets to make the choice albeit at a higher cost. It’s an incentive for/against certain choices, not a government-mandated exclusion of choices.
Absolutely. Don’t we have to start solving it somewhere? Or must we wait for the comprehensive perfect solution that accounts for every possible variation? The second article I linked above mentions that the uncertainty around sugary-drink taxes is possibly an argument to try them, so we can gather some data. Of course that will suffer from NIMBY issues.
In any case, we probably can just agree to disagree on the issue. I see where you’re coming from, I just think the alternatives to sugared drinks are easier to get no matter the neighborhood, unlike fresh produce in a food desert.
Also, I’d be happy if beverage companies were given “% sugared drink sales” targets like car manufacturers are with MPG. Put the onus on the manufacturers to make, advertise, and sell healthier beverages as a greater portion of their total revenue.