While reviewing an online article about the foods you should
eat for younger skin, I chuckled when I thought, “Well, you certainly wouldn’t
find soda on that list." The beneficial foods listed were: salmon, carrots,
milk, almonds, safflower/sunflower oil, broccoli berries, spices, watermelon
and, my favorite, dark chocolate – but no soda.
Then I thought about those forward-thinking members of the Richmond , CA
The sponsor of this soda tax, Councilman Jeff Ritterman,
also happens to be a doctor. He points to soda and other sugar-sweetened drinks
as the main cause of childhood obesity in Richmond
If the voters get behind the soda tax, Richmond
Of course, the American Beverage Association and grocers who
would lose a bit of income and soda drinkers who would have to pay the
penny-per-ounce tax are grousing about the unfairness of such a tax, calling it
a tax on poor people. I would beg to differ. This is a tax to help poor people.
First off, maybe someone with limited income would think twice about drinking
all those sodas and switch to water. And can you imagine all the good the money
from sodas could do for the youth of Richmond
Let’s hope the people of Richmond
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1 comment:
The trouble with this tax is that it's in a socioeconomically diverse city where the "wealthy" already shop outside Richmond leaving only those without means or mobility to pay higher prices at our one supermarket, corner stores, and fast-food joints. That's even worse than a simple regressive tax and extracting up to $8M annually from our most underserved neighborhoods is not helping the poor.
This tax places a fee on businesses instead of the soda drinkers. Richmond's food retailers, already struggling with tight margins, will have no choice but to distribute the added fees and labor among all their merchandise in order to remain competitive, which translates to higher prices for staples for our poorest residents. If they choose to risk driving away customers and raise only the cost of soda the higher price will do nothing to deter the consumption of sweetened beverages.
Richmond has many vacant storefronts and a shortage of grocery stores yet retail chains like Trader Joes, Safeway, Mi Pueblo either refuse to come here or have left town for neighboring cities. If we pass a tax that makes it even costlier to do business we can be assured that the shunning of Richmond will continue if this tax is passed.
Everyone agrees that the obesity epidemic is a very serious problem and must be addressed. Soda taxes on a State level, say on the supply-side where it's invisible to consumers, would be a smart way to generate an equitable revenue stream for retailer incentives, obesity education, and physical exercise opportunities for our youth. Taxing Richmond's poor is not the solution.
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