The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the spreading efforts to combat obesity by reducing the consumption of sugary drinks.
The Richmond, California City Council put a measure on the November ballot that taxes businesses on the basis of how much Coke and Pepsi they sell. Although the proposal differs from Mayor Bloomberg’s more direct method of regulation, the goal is the same: to promote health by deterring bad behavior. Oops, did I say “bad”? I meant to say “unhealthy,” which for our secular elites is about as bad as bad gets. When it comes to sex, children are not to make “unhealthy” choices. Same with drugs. Same with the kinds of people they hang out with.
In any event, the Richmond, California initiative shows that Mayor Bloomberg’s plans for New York do not reflect the isolated mentality of a waistline obsessed billionaire. Richmond is a middle class town in the northeastern part of the Bay Area. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if voters approve the plan. It’s human to want to live in a community that disciplines our desires, and in our officially non-judgmental culture if the only thing we can get is discipline ordered toward the good of health, then we’ll take it.
There is an opening here. The sociological studies show the harms caused by divorce just as the epidemiological studies show the problems caused by obesity. Why not a tax on divorce? Or a tax on abortions? As the City Council in Richmond know, if you tax something, you get less of it.
Just a thought.
August 14th, 2012 | 8:56 am
It seems to me there is something to be said for taxing unhealthful products and behaviors that one doesn’t want to ban outright, if the revenue is used in some fairly direct way to pay for costs the behaviors or products impose on society. It would be roughly similar to requiring smokers to pay more for health insurance. If viewed this way, it would not be the “nanny state” trying to manage the lives of citizens. It would be requiring people whose behavior places a heavier burden on society (primarily through health care costs, but in other ways, too) to foot their fair share of the bill.
Although I don’t approve of Bloomberg’s plan, it is purely symbolic. If people really want 32 ounces of soda, they can buy two 16-ounce glasses.
August 14th, 2012 | 3:19 pm
I’m not sure why, but for some reason the people who are most insistent about controlling other peoples’ “unhealthy” behaviors seem to think that sexual activity is somehow different – a special category of protected activity, unlimited, promiscuous, high-risk sex being a basic human right.
Perhaps there is fear that if any limit at all is introduced restricting the right to irresponsible sexual behavior (and, more importantly, freedom from any consequences of that behavior), then the whole thing might come apart: if sex is only something that is good when it is done in healthy ways, then the entire sexual revolution could very well simply unravel?
August 14th, 2012 | 5:01 pm
Blake,
What are your proposals? An unsafe-sex tax? Chastity belts? Surveillance cameras in hotel rooms?
Actually, the government is very much involved in trying to discourage irresponsible sexual behavior and its consequences through public education, distribution of condoms, STD screening, and so on. There are ads all over the place in the subways and busses on these topics as well as public service announcements on radio and tv. There is much, much more going on in New York City in the way of attempting to deal with unsafe sexual behavior than there will ever be trying to discourage other unhealthy behaviors.
August 14th, 2012 | 9:54 pm
It drives me crazy that this conversation ever happens. Soda is so cheap because of corn subsidies. We don’t need to tax it. We need to let the market price the corn syrup and the sugar. Spending government money on subsidies, and then taxing subsidized goods is just stupid.
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