Proposed Tax on Sugary Beverages Debated
In the article “Proposed Tax on Sugary Beverages Debated”, William Neuman describes the debate on a proposal to tax sugary drinks. The proponents group of the proposal believes that taxes on sugary beverages will not only raise billions of dollars to help people with obesity but also reduces health risks by making consumers buying less of those drinks. A team of prominent people do comparison between sugary beverages and the cigarette; that taxes on cigarette have used to help curb smoking. Thus, they believe the proposal on sugary beverages will also work as well as cigarette in the future. However, those industries and companies which manufacture and retail the sugary beverages are very unhappy about the decline of sales and disagree with the proposal.
I think nobody likes taxes whatever new taxes or the taxes they used to pay because that cost money. Taxes will not always lead to positive consequences; rather it causes more negative results to the economy. When a new tax policy comes out, the economy would largely be affected. In the article “Do Taxes Affect Economic Growth?” it mentioned “tax changes have very large effects on output” and “tax increase of one percent of GDP lowers real GDP by almost three percent”. It means that taxes actually decrease outputs and cause a deadweight loss to the economy, then lead to decrease of real GDP. The economy might do better by not having those new taxes since the new tax break the balance of the original inputs and outputs of economy.
In our case, this new tax is causing negative results to the sugary beverage industries and companies. These industries and companies are neglecting the consequences the products will cause to consumers which will make large effects on the market. According to the article
“Sugary Drinks and Obesity Fact Sheet”, “One study found that for each additional 12-ounce soda children consumed each day, the odds of becoming obese increased by 60% during 1½ years of follow-up”; “People who consume sugary drinks regularly—1 to 2 cans a day or more—have a 26% greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes than people who rarely have such drinks”; and “A 22-year study of 80,000 women found that those who consumed a can a day of sugary drink had a 75% higher risk of gout than women who rarely had such drinks”. Based on the above information, sugary beverages not only cause obesity to people but also harmful to health system and risky to their lives. When these are neglecting by the market, the market will be overestimated and the result will be very different.
I believe the proposal will work as well as cigarette and alcohol in
