Coke and Pepsi increase their lobbying

In an effort to prevent the United States government from harming their business, Coke and Pepsi have substantially increased their lobbying effort. The increased lobbying is a result of House and Senate proposals which would add a 3 cent tax to each 12 ounces of soda. The result would be an additional $24 billion that could be used to subsidize Americans who either don’t want of “can’t afford” health insurance.

Why would the government be so focused on taxing sugary drinks? Here’s Barack Obama’s reasoning:

“There’s no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda,” he said. “If you wanted to make a big impact on people’s health in this country, reducing things like soda consumption would be helpful.”

Soda isn’t healthy, and people would be better off if they drank less of it. Those who are advocates of a soda tax seem to forget one important point: What Americans choose to eat and drink is none of the government’s business! People usually put sugar in their coffee, should we tax that? Why not tax candy, cupcakes, and pastry, since they all have lots of sugar? Of course, if the government wanted to be really serious, be could impose major taxes on red meat and fried foods. We could become a country of tofu-eating, sugar-avoiding vegetarians. Of course, if this were to happen, he would probably institute a small veggie tax.

Adults don’t need the government to tell us what to eat, and parents are more than capable of making decisions for their children. The implementation of a soda tax would be the first step on a slippery slope which will continue to erode our liberty. Coke’s CEO, Muhtar Kent summed up the situation perfectly:

“I have never seen it work where a government tells people what to eat and what to drink…If it worked, the Soviet Union would still be around.”

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