Taxes will soon be levied on sugar-sweetened beverages sold at supermarkets and restaurants Chicago, San Francisco, Boulder, Colo., and Oakland and Albany, Calif.
A penny-per-ounce fee will be applied to sugary beverages sold in the California cities. The tax is a result of "yes" votes on ballot initiatives presented to voters Tuesday[, November 8, 2016]. San Francisco, Oakland and Albany, Calif., will join Berkeley, Calif., which passed a similar tax two years ago.
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A 2 cent-per-ounce tax, which could more than double the price of a 2-liter bottle of soda by raising it by $1.35, will be charged in Boulder where about 54% of voters affirmed a ballot measure Tuesday, according to reports. [1]
Levying a tax on sugary drinks is not limited to cities in the western United States. "Looking to raise millions for a bold expansion of early childhood education, Philadelphia City Council on Thursday[, June 16, 2016,] approved a 1.5-cent-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened and diet beverages, the first such tax imposed in a major U.S. city." [2]
This blogger agrees that an over-consumption of beverages that contain sugar causes obesity which could lead to other health issues, but so does an over-consumption of all foods whether they contain sugar or not. [3] If a person chooses to eat an abundance of chocolate bars, ice-cream, buffalo wings (actually chicken wings since buffaloes cannot fly), double bacon cheeseburgers, ribs, steaks, all kinds of fried foods like fried chicken, fried shrimp, fried fish, french fries, onion rings and fried cheese sticks, and drink beer, wine and hard liquor none of which by the way is taxed based on volume but based on price, then why not let them even if they should not over-indulge? Why do government officials find the need to curb people's spending and consumption habits by imposing a tax on certain items consumed but not others?
Does the government impose a tax on sinful behaviors such as adultery, promiscuity, calling God's name in vain, hating one's neighbors, betrayal, et cetera in order to discourage them? It does not, and why not? Is it not more important to prevent people from going to Hell than to prevent them from becoming obese and diabetic and from having a mouthful of cavity-filled teeth on earth? The answer is no. A United States district court judge ruled that "San Francisco 'has a legitimate interest in public health and safety' and that the city 'had a reasonable basis' for identifying sugar-sweetened beverages as a cause of obesity, diabetes and tooth decay." [4] This same judge would never rule that any law that lessens one's chances of going to Hell is an integral part of the public's health and safety in the afterlife and that it would be entirely reasonable for a city run by ultra-conservative Catholics to "un-separate" church and state.
Even a dreamer such as this blogger needs to wake up and live within the confines of reality even if it is irrational. If indeed government officials want to improve public health and safety, taxing sugary beverages but not taxing an over-consumption of other foods is not the best way to achieve its underlying objectives, but then this blogger does not know and will not venture to guess what the government's true underlying objectives might encompass. Assuming that they are only to curb obesity and lessen the incidences of diabetes and tooth decay, would it not be more effective to levy a tax based on disproportional weight to height, on disproportional waistline to weight, and on results of periodic dental check-ups (even though that each of these would still be a tax on Free Will)? Perhaps it would be better to avoid a direct tax on Free Will but instead tax clothing manufacturers that make clothes that fit those who are obese and tax those who provide them with transportation, to encourage obese people to slim down and buy affordable clothing and to walk as a form of exercise to lose weight and avoid the diseases that obesity can cause. Even that is not ideal in this blogger's mind. What is ideal is to give people the freedom to choose what they want to do with their bodies, knowing that the body is the temple of God, and that the body is God's gift to man and what man makes of it is man's gift back to God.
In God's perfect world, people are free to sin but choose freely not to sin. In certain governments' perfect world, people are not free to manage their own eating habits without paying a tax but can choose freely to self-mutilate reproductive organs, engage in promiscuous and risky sexual behavior that can lead to different kinds of sexually transmitted infections and diseases, become addicted to drugs and alcohol, abort living fetuses, to lie, to cheat, to betray, to deny and so on without having to pay a tax.
[1] http://supermarketnews.com/beverage/soda-tax-be-imposed-5-new-cities
[2] http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20160617_Philadelphia_City_Council_to_vote_on_soda_tax.html
[3] Not only is an excess consumption of sugar unhealthful, this blogger was told by a doctor that eating lots of salty foods constricts blood vessels, and that too can put one's health at risk.
[4] http://www.wsj.com/articles/soda-industry-fails-to-stop-san-francisco-law-targeting-sugar-1463525818#renderComments
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