3 ms·

It would be more effective and efficient to just put a tax right on sugar commodities. Add something like a 30% tax with the intention of driving the price up.

tormeh 10y ago
Yep. Just tax the sugar and most of the problems go away. It sounds too simple to be true, but I think it could be true.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Imposing any tax (or subsidy) with a primary purpose of changing public behavior is not acceptable to me. It's arrogant and patronizing, and turns what would otherwise be objective facts into topics for lobbying and political debate. If you want to sway people, do it with information, not by charging them extra for doing what is wrong in your opinion. While I would never support a "sugary foods" consumer tax, I might support a uniform tax on the purchase price of all restaurant foods, that would specifically support objective dietary and nutrition science, public education campaigns on how to obtain nutritious meals at any income level, publicly queryable tracking of food items from farms to tables, random testing of restaurant foods as served to the end-consumer, and more effective nutrition labels for prepackaged foods and restaurant menu items. If you fund objective research on what people should eat (and why) by taxing what they do eat, the information alone should be sufficient to help people choose healthier meals on their own, rather than by twisting their arms with existing biases and assumptions. I personally believe (without objective data to back it up) that excessive dietary sugars, particularly those containing fructose, are the most blameworthy single factor for American obesity, and that this is due in part to steep import tariffs on foreign-produced crystalline sucrose, farming subsidies and favors to domestic corn, beet, and cane producers, the price differential between high-fructose corn syrup and crystalline sucrose, the weakly-supported demonization of dietary fats, and the slow decline of real median-household purchasing power since the 1970s. In other words, we got to where we are now by pushing people around with overly-specific taxation and politically-influenced dietary recommendations.

tormeh 10y ago

Yep. Just tax the sugar and most of the problems go away. It sounds too simple to be true, but I think it could be true.

logfromblammo 10y ago
Imposing any tax (or subsidy) with a primary purpose of changing public behavior is not acceptable to me. It's arrogant and patronizing, and turns what would otherwise be objective facts into topics for lobbying and political debate. If you want to sway people, do it with information, not by charging them extra for doing what is wrong in your opinion. While I would never support a "sugary foods" consumer tax, I might support a uniform tax on the purchase price of all restaurant foods, that would specifically support objective dietary and nutrition science, public education campaigns on how to obtain nutritious meals at any income level, publicly queryable tracking of food items from farms to tables, random testing of restaurant foods as served to the end-consumer, and more effective nutrition labels for prepackaged foods and restaurant menu items. If you fund objective research on what people should eat (and why) by taxing what they do eat, the information alone should be sufficient to help people choose healthier meals on their own, rather than by twisting their arms with existing biases and assumptions. I personally believe (without objective data to back it up) that excessive dietary sugars, particularly those containing fructose, are the most blameworthy single factor for American obesity, and that this is due in part to steep import tariffs on foreign-produced crystalline sucrose, farming subsidies and favors to domestic corn, beet, and cane producers, the price differential between high-fructose corn syrup and crystalline sucrose, the weakly-supported demonization of dietary fats, and the slow decline of real median-household purchasing power since the 1970s. In other words, we got to where we are now by pushing people around with overly-specific taxation and politically-influenced dietary recommendations.