The mayor of New York Mr. Michael R Bloomberg has an idea that will be able to kill two birds with one stone. Seeking to address the state budget deficit that could lead to service cuts in education and healthcare, the mayor suggested that soda be taxed. The proposed tax on soda would be a penny per ounce of soda and would be able to obviate the threatened service cuts.
The city needs a quick source of revenue and this will provide it; however it also provides, what to the common man on the street, is a more important public service. Making the high calorie, sugary drinks more expensive will likely cause people buy fewer of them and consequently consume less of them, thereby curbing obesity and subsequent medical costs.
The mayor does make a lot of sense when he says, “the soda tax is a fix that just makes sense. It would save lives. It would cut rising health care costs. And it would keep thousands of teachers and nurses where they belong: in the classrooms and clinics.”
Seeing that most of these fizzy, sugary drinks have little or no nutritional value, the tax makes sense; a lot of sense. in fact it may be a good idea to tax them even more; that may discourage people even more!
Source: NY Times
