A New Policy Disagreement Between Clinton and Sanders: Soda Taxes

[Attorney in Texas]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by mcar (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: New York Times

A tax on sugary soft drinks, like the one proposed in Philadelphia and endorsed by Mrs. Clinton this week, divides the left. It can be seen as achieving an admirable public health goal of less sugar consumption or as a very regressive tax that falls more on the poor than the rich, since the poor tend to drink more soda.... This week, Mrs. Clinton became the first presidential candidate to explicitly endorse a tax on sugary drinks. ... “It starts early with working with families, working with kids, building up community resources,” Mrs. Clinton said, according to a CNN report. “I’m very supportive of the mayor’s proposal to tax soda to get universal preschool for kids. I mean, we need universal preschool. And if that’s a way to do it, that’s how we should do it.”
...
But there’s another way to view soda taxes: as measures that hit the poor harder. Lower-income Philadelphians, like other lower-income Americans, tend to drink more soda than their richer neighbors. ... “Making sure that every family has high-quality, affordable preschool and child care is a vision that I strongly share,” Mr. Sanders said, in a written statement. “On the other hand, I do not support paying for this proposal through a regressive tax on soda that will significantly increase taxes on low-income and middle-class Americans. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, it should be the people on top who see an increase in their taxes, not low-income and working people.”... Mr. Sanders also says Mrs. Clinton’s support violates her pledge not to raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000.

Mr. Sanders’s argument is in line with many soda tax opponents. And there’s most likely some truth to it. Tobacco taxes, in many ways the model for soda taxes, have tended to fall largely on low-income people, who remain more likely to smoke.... In Mexico, where a big, national soda tax went into effect in 2014, soda drinking declined the fastest among the poor, who felt the tax’s effects in their budgets most acutely. Consumption among the poorest Mexicans fell by 17 percent by the end of the year, compared with 12 percent in the population nationwide. As Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina puts it: The rich paid the tax, and the poor reduced their soda drinking. If something like that happens in Philadelphia, the poor may suffer in the form of less choice or enjoyment, but they may not bear the brunt of funding city preschool.

Republicans appear to be nearly united in their opposition to the measure, both as a tax increase and a “nanny state” intrusion on personal choice. That is not true of conservatives the world over, though. In Britain, the Conservative government just proposed a hefty soda tax, which is expected to become law.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/upshot/a-new-policy-disagreement-between-clinton-and-sanders-soda-taxes.html

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Nice to see a news article focusing on the current platform issues as they emerge to confront the party rather than the endless news stories simply focusing on latest campaign rhetoric.

Also, many people think of the labels "liberal" and "progressive" as synonymous because the movements so often overlap in their goals, but there is an important distinction, which is highlighted by this new issue.

Whereas Sanders is generally more liberal and also more progressive than Clinton, this is an issue that highlights where Sanders' position is more liberal but Hillary's position is more progressive.

[cprise]

1. I thought it was bottles, not "soda". n/t

[Downwinder]

2. Here comes the Fat Tax.

[zalinda]

3. Here's the news that wealthier people don't understand

The poor drink soda, smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol because they contain stress relievers and depression helpers.

In the wealthier households, it's ice cream and wine, or mj. Let's make the poors life suckier than it already is.

Z

[northernsouthern]

5. I recall Jon Stewart hating rules in NY on soda.

Taxing it does help reduce the amount people buy of it. With out some sort of free medical where they can help people stay healthy with preventative medicine (far more effective), I see the tax as a somewhat ok way to help people. Cutting back cigarettes is noble. Also aren't there studies that show the poor are less drug dependent because they can't afford them?

Oh and I don not like how we come to depend on the tax revenues from the sin taxes either.

[zalinda]

11. Again, let's make poor people's life suckier, no big deal. eom

[northernsouthern]

12. Well yes and no.

It is like the food desert idea. We can only get those types of foods in a food desert. I would think they could do a combined outreach to help the poor with health issues? I have been dirt poor and not had food before, but sometimes all you can get is the horrible food for an affordable price, i.e. raman, canned soups, most of what they have at winco (winco burn)...so perhaps they could offer a way for poor families to get better food instead of just the stick. I don't like the idea of drugging up our nation to make them happy, but perhaps giving them other options...but that would mean people actually giving a cr@p about the poor.

[Major Nikon]

14. Well you have to admit it's a brilliant plan

We can simultaneously decrease the consumption of sugar while providing a solid revenue stream for a worthy cause.

Oh wait, maybe I should rethink those two things because they kinda sound like Saint Ronnie's promise to explode defense spending, decrease taxes, and simultaneously pay off the national debt. The math just doesn't work.

[northernsouthern]

15. Yeah.

The whole cancer stick tax going to things other than dealing with effects of the cigarettes always bugged me. It invites corruption. Perhaps a tax that goes to making places to play and exercise?

[Major Nikon]

17. Why can't people just think of the children?

[northernsouthern]

18. Because they are not theirs.

What doe Europe do to reduce sugar? My understanding ti the availability of good food for all, time off, options for exercise, and the medical care?

[Major Nikon]

19. A good part of Europe isn't that far behind the US on sugar consumption

Those same areas also tend to be well ahead of the US in fat consumption.

[anigbrowl]

20. And how is that working out for them?

Wealthy people understand this perfectly well. Wealthy people also understand that taxes provide incentive to change economic behavior. I am more than familiar with the palliative effect of cheap foods, tobacco and so on as I have plenty of first-hand experience of that. And I am strongly in favor of putting high taxes on those things; the money I saved by not smoking provided me with quite a good incentive to stay quit. Anything that hurts the corporations that are making a living out of selling shitty addictive products to people is something I'm heartily in favor of.

Depression helpers my ass. You should be ashamed of yourself.

[MoreGOPoop]

4. Tax the Kochs!

[azurnoir]

6. oh so Hillary's going to show those poor folks the way to better health via taxes

on pop - sounds more like 1996 Clinton to me

[MH1]

7. I think it's a necessary evil, but should be a tax on sugar, not soda

Sugar is the problem, and it isn't just a problem in sodas.

I also think the Philly tax rate is exorbitant. (Can't remember what it is off the top of my head, but I remember when I heard it I did a facepalm. I generally support the concept but not at a ridiculous rate.)

If sugar content were taxed across all or most food items, then the added cost to an individual item wouldn't have to be as much to pay for the program and generate revenue. (On the other hand, that's probably harder to design and administer).

Another thing is that maybe the tax should be used to support/augment nutrition programs in schools. Or in other words, if that universal preschool comes with free, nutritious meals, that's a win in my book.

[bhikkhu]

24. Have you ever had flat soda?

Its ridiculously sweet, hard to drink. Have you ever had straight carbonated water? It has a bitter taste. Carbonated soda works because the super-high sugar content is masked by the carbonation, so you can consume a very large amount of sugar comfortably. It is a somewhat unique concoction. But, with that said, I'd have no problem with a sugar tax, or a tax on high sugar-per-serving products. Most areas tax non-food items while exempting food from taxation. I'd have no problem with taxing some non-nutritive foods.

[Frances]

8. I think the soda tax is like the cigarette tax

Smoking fewer cigarettes helped poor and rich; drinking fewer sodas will help poor and rich.

[Major Nikon]

16. It's nothing like the cigarette tax

Cigarettes were already a pretty expensive commodity before they started increasing the consumption tax on them. So increasing that tax fairly moderately had some effect on consumption, but not nearly as much as all the other efforts like strengthening laws against marketing cigarettes to children, anti-smoking laws, and a very concerted public awareness campaign.

Sugar is an incredibly cheap commodity. Granular sugar sells retail for about 50 cents per pound in bulk so you have to imagine the wholesale price is probably 1/2 to 1/4th of that. HFCS is cheaper still. So in order to have any measurable effect on consumption, you would have to enact a tax that completely dwarfs the production price of the base ingredient and you still wouldn't have anything which could compare with the biggest reasons why smoking actually declined.

The best anyone could ever hope for is a modest increase which would almost certainly have little to no effect on consumption that would simply soak the poorest Americans on taxes, who are already regressively taxed at insane levels.

[anigbrowl]

21. Unfortunately the evidence is against you

They already have a soda tax in Mexico, and contrary to your prediction it appears to be working. Soda consumption feel about 12% year over year: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/upshot/yes-soda-taxes-seem-to-cut-soda-drinking.html?_r=0

[yardwork]

25. Your argument makes no sense.

Either the tax is high enough to make a difference, or it's not, in which case it's not enough to "soak" anybody.

In any case, this is very different from taxing food or things people need.

[MattP]

9. Diabetes is no joke

The sugar in this country is wack there is sugar in everything that doesn't need it

[Bonhomme Richard]

10. This sort of stuff doesn't bode well for Democrats.

There are bigger fights that would draw more to the tent. This sort of focus chases away the average voter and fills the caracature of the Democratic Party.
Once again Bernie is right and Hillary panders.

[yardwork]

26. I'd think you would be pleased that Hillary is taking on Big Sugar and the fast food industry.

[Major Nikon]

13. Supporting a highly regressive tax = progressive

You learn something new all the time.

[bhikkhu]

22. I'm on Hillary's side with this one

While I'd stop short of becoming any kind of "food police", I have no issue with extending sales tax to products that are only arguably food. I'm in favor of taxing cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana as well. And I'm ok with container deposits.

[yardwork]

23. Nobody NEEDS soda, so how can taxing it hurt poor people?

I'm in favor of high taxes on tobacco, alcohol, and soda. They cause harm. People who choose to consume them should help pay for the costs.

And if the higher cost is a deterrent, who is harmed?