Will Saletan has a weirdly phrased column on soda taxes that seems to imply some trickery in a fairly straightforward policy proposal. The idea behind soda taxes -- or similar taxes on harmful goods -- is that they raise revenue (good!) while discouraging something we want less of (also good!). This is in contrast to taxes that, say, raise revenue (good!) while discouraging work (income taxes) or the ability to buy toiletries (sales taxes). So why soda? Well, one thing about the health care system: It doesn't make you all that much healthier. Estimates are that only about 10-15 percent of amenable mortality -- the fancy term for preventable deaths -- have anything to do with health care. The rest is nutrition and exercise and environment and stress and genes and much more. Public health types will tell you that taxing and scorning cigarettes has done more to make people healthier than anything that's gone on inside the walls of a hospital.There's not a lot of disagreement that sugared soda makes you fat. The literature is pretty clear. The finding is pretty intuitive. Nor is there a lot of argument that we need to find some way of reducing diabetes and obesity lest our health system collapse under the weight of the costs. And nor is there a lot of disagreement over the fact that the government needs more revenue. So the question, given all that, is why it's better to tax something like work, which we want more of, rather than soda consumption, which we want less of. The fact that part of those taxes on work will go towards preventive health programs and chronic disease spending that will be less effective than just making soda pricier only further underscores the question. WHY SHOULDN'T WE TAX SODA?
Will Saletan has a weirdly phrased column on soda taxes that seems to imply some trickery in a fairly straightforward policy proposal. The idea behind soda taxes -- or similar taxes on harmful goods -- is that they raise revenue (good!) while discouraging something we want less of (also good!). This is in contrast to taxes that, say, raise revenue (good!) while discouraging work (income taxes) or the ability to buy toiletries (sales taxes). So why soda? Well, one thing about the health care system: It doesn't make you all that much healthier. Estimates are that only about 10-15 percent of amenable mortality -- the fancy term for preventable deaths -- have anything to do with health care. The rest is nutrition and exercise and environment and stress and genes and much more. Public health types will tell you that taxing and scorning cigarettes has done more to make people healthier than anything that's gone on inside the walls of a hospital.There's not a lot of disagreement that sugared soda makes you fat. The literature is pretty clear. The finding is pretty intuitive. Nor is there a lot of argument that we need to find some way of reducing diabetes and obesity lest our health system collapse under the weight of the costs. And nor is there a lot of disagreement over the fact that the government needs more revenue. So the question, given all that, is why it's better to tax something like work, which we want more of, rather than soda consumption, which we want less of. The fact that part of those taxes on work will go towards preventive health programs and chronic disease spending that will be less effective than just making soda pricier only further underscores the question. 
