Sugar Taxed

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drinks to help pay for health care reform while dissuading people from overconsuming sweetened beverages. (Another proposal would raise federal taxes on alcoholic drinks).

Of course, the mere fact that a tax is effective in reducing consumption doesn't by itself mean it should be enacted. Indeed, the same argument can be made against imposing taxes. Reducing consumption reduces sales, which hurts business, which could hit workers and stockholders.

And soda pop ain't cigarettes. Any amount of smoking is bad for you, but as the otherwise-disingenuous beverage industry correctly points out, it's possible to consume sugary drinks in moderation without seriously degrading your health.

Still, given the alarming rates of obesity and diabetes in the United States, and given the dire need to finance health care reform, such a tax may do a lot of good. I say "may" because the effectiveness of the proposal is far from clear, as is the impact it might have on the beverage industry, which is already struggling with declining sales. I don't really have a strong position on the issue (despite what happened the last time I wrote about this, when a particularly insistent young anti-tax zealot repeatedly e-mailed me to complain, as if I were trying to take money out of his bank account to give it to the Socialist Workers Party).

It's also far from clear that such a tax will pass. A similar effort in New York recently failed miserably, perhaps because the rate was way too high?18 percent. The Associated Press reported that while there has been plenty of lobbying activity on both sides of the federal proposal, it has been relatively "quiet." The beverage industry and allies such as the corn lobby have not wanted to appear too zealous in opposing schemes to finance health care reform, it said.

But if you look hard enough, you'll find plenty of strong language coming from the sweetener lobby. Like this gem from Neil Trautwein of the National Retail Federation: "Are they going to hit couch manufacturers? School districts that have canceled physical education?" The AP characterized his questions as jokes, but given the similarly bombastic language from other tax opponents, I'm not so sure.

Last week, the New York Times editorial page came out in favor of the tax. While the Times did put some of the onus for health on consumers themselves?where it surely belongs?it also recognized the obesity epidemic for what it is: a public-health problem.