Via Marion Nestle comes word that David Paterson is backing off his idea to tax soda in New York. That's a shame. New York, like every other state, is watching its revenues plummet. In order to continue to fund daily operations, it will have to find new sources of money somewhere. Taxing things we want less of, like soda consumption and cigarette smoke and carbon emissions, is better than taxing things we want more of, like work (income taxes) and general consumption (sales taxes). This is all the truer given that New York spends a lot of money providing health care for people with diabetes and lung cancer. Taxing something like soda both raises short-term revenues and lowers long-term costs. And it doesn't depress overall demand: If soda becomes relatively more expensive, you'll buy less of it and more of something else. Conversely, a sales tax, where everything becomes more expensive, will just lead you to purchase less, which is a bad thing amidst a recession. TAXING SODA. OR NOT.
Via Marion Nestle comes word that David Paterson is backing off his idea to tax soda in New York. That's a shame. New York, like every other state, is watching its revenues plummet. In order to continue to fund daily operations, it will have to find new sources of money somewhere. Taxing things we want less of, like soda consumption and cigarette smoke and carbon emissions, is better than taxing things we want more of, like work (income taxes) and general consumption (sales taxes). This is all the truer given that New York spends a lot of money providing health care for people with diabetes and lung cancer. Taxing something like soda both raises short-term revenues and lowers long-term costs. And it doesn't depress overall demand: If soda becomes relatively more expensive, you'll buy less of it and more of something else. Conversely, a sales tax, where everything becomes more expensive, will just lead you to purchase less, which is a bad thing amidst a recession. 
