A not-so-sweet idea (Sept. 22)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
I’m not one who drinks sodas with sugar in them. For me, it’s diet Coke, diet Dr. Pepper or diet Pepsi all the way. That’s why I don’t personally care if plans to put a tax on sugared soda pop are carried out.
The penny-an-ounce tax (about 12 cents a can) being proposed by San Francisco’s mayor and gubernatorial hopeful, Gavin Newsom, would be imposed mainly on San Francisco’s young people, who are the main Coke, Pepsi and Dr. Pepper drinkers. But that’s okay in this case. If you don’t look like Newsom, you deserve to pay more taxes.
Newsom, a skinny Democrat, is a believer in the data we’ve been hearing lately that the reason Americans seem to be getting fatter is because of all the sugary soft drinks we consume (or rather that you consume, what with my being sugar free). Because as a people we are getting more obese, we also are getting more diabetes, more high blood pressure, more heart attacks, etc., and dieticians are blaming a good part of it on all the sugar Americans consume, especially what they consume as children.
And there’s probably some truth in those data, although there are other data that also show we are eating more fruits and vegetables, too.
Newsom probably hopes piling a tax on sugary pop will have the same effect that piling taxes on cigarettes had, which was to discourage some users from using. With a package of cigarettes costing what a carton once sold for, it’s no wonder fewer people are buying smokes. But to have the same effect on soda pop, a cent-an-ounce tax wouldn’t cut it. The tax would have to be more like $3 a can or $10 for a 2-liter bottle.
And to whom would all those taxes go? Probably to support the poor, who wouldn’t be able to afford to eat because of all the money they’d be spending on soda pop.
