[stanleydrew]

Those types of arguments fail to impress me. They are the equivalent of "But Mikey's mom lets him ride his bike without a helmet?!"

Are we so naive to think that until the entire country or the entire world decides to implement the same tax that nobody should attempt to make progress?

[7Figures2Commas]

So a tax that is regressive represents "progress"?

I assume your reference to "progress" is based on an assumption that the tax will produce the intended effect of forcing individuals to make healthier choices, but there's no evidence that this is the case. In fact, there's evidence that many consumers will just substitute in untaxed high calorie foods[1].

[1] http://www.rti.org/newsroom/news.cfm?obj=5C84B2F7-5056-B100-...

[wpietri]

Cigarette taxes are regressive and definitely represent progress. They were a big help in reducing smoking, and in turn reducing smoking-related health problems.

[7Figures2Commas]

Putting aside a debate over regressive taxes, the problem with your comparison is that you assume the market for sugary drinks functions the same way the market for cigarettes does when, in fact, studies have not found the same type of substitution dynamic[1].

In other words, "support soda taxes because cigarette taxes!" is not an argument based on any hard data. If you're going to argue for the use of taxation to force behavior, as a starting point you should have real evidence that the specific tax in question has a high likelihood of producing the specific behavior you're trying to change. Relying on some other tax that may have influenced another behavior is simply specious.

[1] http://tigger.uic.edu/~fjc/Presentations/Papers/taxes_consum...

[wpietri]

I don't believe I made that argument.

Also, if your view is "before you can do an experiment you must have hard data to prove the experiment will work" then it sounds like you aren't getting many experiments done.

[7Figures2Commas]

Data already exists, and you can model against it. Apparently you didn't read the study I linked to:

> The study, published online in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, found that a half-cent per ounce increase in sugar-sweetened beverage prices, which adds up to about ten cents on a typical 20-ounce bottle of soda, could reduce total calories from the 23 foods and beverages examined under the study.

> However, researchers found, the reduction in sugary beverages due to a soda tax would likely lead consumers to substitute for those beverage calories by increasing their calorie, salt and fat intake from untaxed foods and beverages.

> “Instituting a sugary beverage tax may be an appealing public policy option to curb obesity, but it’s not as easy to use taxes to curb obesity as it is with smoking,” said Chen Zhen, Ph.D., a research economist at RTI, and the paper’s lead author. “Consumers can simply substitute an untaxed high calorie food for a taxed one. And as we know, reducing calories is just one of many ways to promoting healthy eating and reducing nutrition-related chronic disease.”

Other studies[1] have come to similar conclusions, and note that much of the research predicting significant reductions in obesity are flawed because they failed to look at substitution.

If you are genuinely interested in implementing a tax ("experiment") that actually has a chance of producing the intended outcome irrespective of cost, the first study suggested that instead of taxing based on ounces, a tax based on calories would address some of the fundamental flaws in ounce-based taxes like those proposed in Prop E.

[1] http://www.news.wisc.edu/22659

[wpietri]

The study you linked to didn't even mention the word "sugar", so I'm not sure what you're talking about there. I'm not going to read an entire apparently unrelated study because some anonymous dude says it's relevant to an argument I'm not even making.

The news article you link to is about two attempts at this in the 1990s, looks broadly, covers places with a very different food culture than San Francisco, and treats obesity as the only relevant health issue from sugar. So I would call it interesting, but not necessarily relevant.

Moreover, you seem to ignore that this is a process. If the soda tax doesn't work, then people will try other things. But this is the thing on the ballot, and the question isn't, "Is this the best possible thing to do?" It's, "Shall we try this next?"

[stanleydrew]

You missed my point.

I was questioning the validity of the arguments the parent commenter presented against Prop E.

Those are not arguments against the proposition based on its merits. They are arguments based on lack of universal implementation.

It doesn't matter how you feel about the actual proposition. I was claiming that the presented arguments were not convincing.

[baddox]

I don't think it would be progress to implement this tax only in SF, or across the globe.

[onida]

What progress is being made here?