[roenxi]

This is an article that suggests the pro-tax side of the argument never came to understand the anti-tax side. Possibly the anti-tax side were being misleading about their complaints. Of course a soda tax will reduce the amount of soda consumed and there was a decent chance it would reduce the amount of sugar too. And if there is a goal to achieve, keep raising the tax until it does what you want.

The problem with this sort of strategy is that we make laws by voting, and so it assumes that we can determine what is healthy by popular vote. This isn't true and it is very easily corrupted if the option is open.

A process like the one that throw out Barack Obama -> Donald Trump -> Joe Biden as the best candidates to lead the US should not be the process that decides what is and isn't healthy to eat. That isn't a reliable process. It is going to get corrupted by special interests. You should be using a different process (maybe using evidence?). And as an aside it could be argued that taxes are a bad tool if we think there is overwhelming evidence something is unhealthy. It creates weird incentives.

[tsimionescu]

> The problem with this sort of strategy is that we make laws by voting, and so it assumes that we can determine what is healthy by popular vote. This isn't true and it is very easily corrupted if the option is open.

Well, we don't really know of any better option for taking collective decisions of high impact. The public and their representatives are informed of the science (and for nutrition information, it's really much more "science" than science at this point) and they decide by voting whether they choose to believe the data presented enough to try to impose tax burdens or other regulations.

What alternative is there? Have nutritionists be able to unilaterally decide what stores are allowed to sell and at what prices? That would get much more easily corrupted, as many nutrition studies have been in the past.

[roenxi]

> What alternative is there?

You could let people who think soda is unhealthy avoid it, and people who don't care buy it from the soda makers. Maybe set up some official nutritional advice [0].

There doesn't have to be a centralised determination on whether soda is to be encouraged or discouraged.

[0] https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/the-austral...

[seanmcdirmid]

This is what already happens. Richer people who are more informed and mindful about their health have been decreasing sugar consumption for awhile now. However, city and state budgets are still heavily affects because the poorer people who more heavily use public services aren’t in that bucket and have much higher obesity rates as a result. They have less access to education and are more likely to ignore advice from their doctor (if they have seen one recently at all).

[chrismcb]

Personally I was against this stupid tax. Of course I drink Coca-cola. But the main reason is because it doesn't really do what they want it to do. It raises a can of coke 20 cents. A glass at the restaurant about 25 cents (of course a glass goes up by that much every year it seems.) As a Coke drinker I would barely see this tax. On the other hand if I drank sweetened ice tea, it works more than double the cost. In fact the less sugar a drink has, the more this tax works increase it, on a percentage basis. Which is ridiculous. What is worse, the funk that has the most calories per ounce, a milkshake, is exempt. Alcohol, also with a high calorie count is also exempt.