Soda Tax Could Raise Money and Shrink Waistlines

I wasn't sure at first what to think about the soda tax—in some way, it seemed like a way to inconvenience people out of buying sugary drinks. And by that, I mean sneaky instead of addressing the fundamental issues behind Americans' overconsumption of soda.

I think I'm in favor of it, though. Food companies have just kept giving people bigger and bigger portions, selling empty calories as a "good value." In the short term, perhaps it is better to simply discourage people from buying soda by putting a high tax on it—a penny per ounce, to be specific.

An article that ran on September 16th on Bloomberg.com discussed some of the benefits of the soda tax. According to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, this could raise $14.9 billion dollars in the first year and cutting a person's daily calorie intake by at least 10%. Not too shabby. Thinking about it, my dad once cut soda out of his diet without making any other changes and lost, like, four pounds right away.

What I'm curious about it what will be done with those $14.9 billion. I'd love to see it go into, say, a campaign to educate consumers about how to eat a healthy diet.

On a semi-related front, I decided yesterday while sipping a can of diet pepsi at 9 a.m. waiting for a lecture to begin, that I need to reign it back in. This summer, I got back into drinking diet I'm drinking, it creeps me out. And I could totally save the money I spend each week on pre-class caffeine fixes to buy, like, one really good drink at some point later in the week. Now that the weather is getting cooler, my usual green tea is a lot more appealing!