Tax sizes of beverages incrementally. Put a tax per ounce on oversized products, with an escalating surcharge as sizes go up above a certain level of large. Yes, it amounts to putting a 'sin' tax on it, as we do with other items, notably cigarettes and alcohol. But it does have the realistic utility of making the product purchase contribute to the resultant product costs, which I would argue is a legitimate form of accounting and accountability in a taxation system, akin to user taxes through the gasoline tax for maintenance of roadways and bridges. Once that is accepted and not something on which there is a sharp oppositional focus you can consider expanding the concept of that kind of 'sin' taxation to the other contributors to the obesity problem. But I would hope that there are more pro-active -- emphasis on 'active' solutions proposed as well, because if there is not a more comprehensive approach to this public health problem, nothing you do, either ban or tax, is going to solve the problem, it will only complicate it. But the idea of combining portion control part of tax regulation standardization, now that's legislative genius, a double public benefit.
You are correctly identifying part of a larger, if you'll pardon the pun, problem Mr. Mayor, but you under-geniused the concept solution.
Here is Jon Stewart pointing out the fallacies in your premise.
| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Drink Different | ||||
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and
| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Drink Different - Pick Your Poison | ||||
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Mayor Bloomberg does not exhibit, in this instance, the genius that helped him to become a billionaire.
ReplyDeleteRE: taxes on drinks, I see that as the companies who make the crap less liable for the harm caused by obesity and its attendant difficulties than the consumers themselves.
I used to go to a dentist who had a visual aid about sugar and its role in nutrition/dental health. It was an eye opener to say the least.
I remember two othere initiatives that tied finance to public responsibility. One was the move to require deposits on beverage containers and the other was the gummint's going after Big Tobacco. Neither program worked out at anything like a level of perfection. However, I was told, by numerous people that EITHER initiative would KILL business. In both cases they were wrong.
I don't know if you'll accept my comment, but we've been telling you that Bloomberg is a control freak for a long time. Letting people make their own choices just isn't in his nature.
ReplyDeleteYou can post Greg; welcome to penigma.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this makes Bloomberg a control freak; you just don't like him because he wants to reduce the number of illegal guns.
He has a solid idea; portion control makes sense. I would suggest you check out the documentary "Supersize Me", (hint - wikipedia has an entry, if you can't find the movie, or don't have the concentration to sit through it) along with the corrupt lobbying practices of the high fructose corn syrup industry. You might want to check out this article to see what I mean: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/05/the-sour-politics-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup/257956/
Bloomberg had the right idea, in a way. But you are never going to sell that idea so long as people see it as taking something away from them -- it's not, people can still buy as much as they want, even if the requirements for size are changed for the better.
The really smart way to do it is to represent this as a sin tax, tax the larger sizes to pay the real costs connected to the beverages, because we are subsidizing them in ways the consumer doesn't register, and make that do double duty for portion control at the same time.
Trust me; the beverage industry is already working out a way to turn such a size regulation to their advantage.
Bloomberg is just smarter than the average consumer who do not, in point of fact, make particularly good or well informed decision.
After all, they choose to let all sorts of people buy guns who shouldn't in ways they shouldn't.
Scroll down to the post I wrote in late May about the supersoaker zip gunner; yeah, because HE is someone who has an innate human goodness we should trust (Not). (If you haven't read it on an earlier visit.) We don't all have your superficial one dimensional view of human nature.
Bloomberg is a very smart man; he was simply not as circumspect as he should have been in presenting this idea.
I don't see all those clever consumers coming up with solutions to the problem btw - do you?
You might want to visit the series I've started on blog harassment btw; I understand it is circulating on the gun blogs. You can read it here first. It is spreading out across the blogosphere, and my hope is that it will benefit a lot of bloggers across the ideological spectrum. No one should be harassed while blogging.
ReplyDeleteI just found it funny to see some of the places my writing ended up this time, LOL.
There were some new developments in the last 24 hours; I'm not sure if I want to write about them now, or wait for a few more developments instead.