The airwaves have been bombarded as of late with and ad from Americans Against Food Taxes that warns of Washington's secret evil plan to tax us on the sugar laden goo we pour down our collective fat ass diabetic throats everyday. The commercial is narrated by a struggling single mother who is "counting pennies," but apparently not calories, to get through this economy. The proposed soda tax is a measure to fund health care reform and curb America's growing-pun intended-obesity epidemic. The plan for a penny per ounce tax on soda and other sugary beverages could raise as much as $150 billion annually over the next ten years but to our struggling mom in the ad from AAGT, a front group for the soda industry, those "pennies add up" when your trying to feed your roly-poly family! The average American drinks 50 gallons of sugared beverages annually, that's the average American, I'm pretty sure I've seen people walking out of Quick Trip with a 50 gallon fountain drink just to hold them over until lunch. So what's the consequence of slurping down all that sugary slime? Besides thousands of dollars wasted, there's the fact that soda has absolutely no nutritional value at all and that a high consumption of sugary beverages has been linked not only to obesity and diabetes, but to kidney disease and osteoporosis.
But the big beverage companies complain that it's unfair to pick on soda when there are so many other factors that contribute to America's miserable health. And in a strategy straight out of the big tobacco playbook, big soda is claiming that a beverage tax would disproportionately affect the poor; when in fact the poor tend to suffer from ailments brought on by heavy amounts of sugar, such as diabetes, and would benefit the most from programs, like universal health care, that could be at least be partially funded through revenue generated from a soda tax. As for the "other factors" that contribute to our deteriorating health? We already tax booze, cigarettes, and even porn for some reason (though I have discovered through my own tireless research that pornography is actually beneficial to ones health) and soda is not any different from those afore mentioned vices (with the exception of porn of course) in that it has no nutritional value. We need to start putting soda and all the other crap that passes for food these days into the same category as alcohol and tobacco. Is the super-sized extra value double bypass cheeseburger meal as bad as a pack of smokes? Probably not, but it's definitely in the same ball park and if paying a few extra CENTS for the vices we all love, and should only indulge in occasionally, can encourage us to eat better and pay for beneficial social programs such as universal health care, I say bring it on. And to all my paranoid friends out there: a soda tax is not Big Brother coming after our food supply, soda is NOT food anyway, but that's not what Big Soda and their front groups would have you believe. And to all my fiscally conservative friends out there who want REAL CHANGE: if you want change sometimes you have to pay for it, literally. So America don't be fooled by these corporate pricks, they're not interested in saving you money only they're bottom line. And stop wining about the cost of your favorite corn syrup loaded treat. It won't kill you to drink a glass of water every now and then but that Big Gulp just might.
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