我们为什么应该对碳酸饮料征税

Introducing the National Soda Tax

By MARK BITTMAN August 05, 2014


观点

我们为什么应该对碳酸饮料征税

马克·比特曼 2014年08月05日



Get this: Rosa DeLauro, the brave and beloved 12-term congresswoman from New Haven, will be introducing a bill in the House of Representatives Wednesday that would require a national tax on sugar-sweetened beverages.


看看这个：来自纽黑文市的罗莎·德劳罗(Rosa DeLauro)勇敢而受人喜爱，她已经当了12届国会议员。周三，她将在众议院提出一个要求在全国范围内对含糖饮料征税的法案。



And it’s about time. You know the big picture, even if you’ve forgotten the details, so I’m going to spare you the stats about obesity and diabetes that have been reiterated here and elsewhere ad infinitum. (If you want a refresher course, see this.) Suffice it to say that sugar-sweetened beverages are linked to obesity and diabetes, and that some form of control is needed. Many sugar-sweetened beverages contain more sugar per bottle than the American Heart Association’s recommended daily limit and the Department of Agriculture’s guidelines for sugar. (The Food and Drug Administration has not set standards for sugar consumption.)


现在正是时候。即使你已经忘了具体细节，你也知道总体情况如何，所以我就不再赘述肥胖和糖尿病的统计数据了，无论是在这里还是在其他地方，这些数据一直在反复出现。（如果你想再了解一下，请看这里。）完全可以说含糖饮料与肥胖症和糖尿病有关，所以需要采取某种形式的控制。许多含糖饮料中，每瓶的含糖量都超出了美国心脏协会(American Heart Association)推荐的每日上限，以及农业部(Department of Agriculture)的糖分摄入指导量。美国食品与药品管理局（Food and Drug Administration，简称FDA）没有设定糖消耗的相关标准。



The Obama administration made a tiny bit of noise about a soda tax back in 2009, but quickly backed off and has been silent on the subject since. For the last few years, there have been numerous attempts to get a significant (I’d call 10 percent of the price meaningful) tax on soda and other sugary drinks in a variety of cities and states. Berkeley, San Francisco and Illinois all have current initiatives, and, predicts Randy Shaw of the online daily BeyondChron, “Berkeley’s soda tax will pass.”


2009年，奥巴马政府曾比较低调地表态支持过一项对碳酸饮料征税的举措，但后来迅速做出让步，其后便再未提及此事。过去几年里，多个城市和州都曾多次尝试对碳酸饮料和其他含糖饮料征收高额税收（我认为售价的10%才是有意义的）。伯克利、旧金山和伊利诺伊州目前都有相关提案，在线日报BeyondChron的兰迪·肖(Randy Shaw)预计，“伯克利的碳酸饮料征税提案将会得到通过。”





That’ll be forceful, because a well-crafted soda tax is likely to work to reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, and therefore obesity, and therefore diabetes, and therefore health care costs, and to raise money for health education about the dangers of overconsumption of sugar.


这个举措将会很有力，因为如果我们有设计良好的碳酸饮料征税政策，很可能就会减少人们对含糖饮料的消费，从而减少肥胖症及糖尿病，降低医疗保健支出，还可以筹集资金用于健康教育，告诉人们食糖过多的危害。



But a national tax would be much tidier. Just eight months after it took effect, Mexico’s soda tax is starting to show positive results — consumption is down, at least — and we could expect a similar performance from DeLauro’s proposed bill. The SWEET Act (as she’s calling it) would amend the I.R.S. code and charge a penny per teaspoon of sugar, high-fructose corn syrup or other caloric sweeteners — “to be paid by the manufacturer, producer or importer of such products.” This would mean roughly a dime per can of soda, closer to 20 cents for a 20-ounce bottle or most medium-size soft drinks at restaurants. (Remember 6.5-ounce Cokes? The 20-ounce standard in part explains the obesity crisis.)


不过，实施全国性的征税政策会更加利落。墨西哥的碳酸饮料税仅仅过了八个月就产生了积极的效果——至少消费量已经降低——我们预期德劳罗的提案也能带来相似的结果。她把这个法案叫作《甜蜜法案》(The SWEET Act)，法案将对国税局(IRS)税法进行修订，并对每茶匙糖、高果糖浆和其他含热量的甜味剂收取1美分——“这些钱将由此类产品的制造商、生产商或进口商来支付。”这就意味着每罐碳酸饮料要付大概10美分，一瓶20盎司的饮料，或者餐馆里大多数的中杯软饮要付将近20美分。（还记得6.5盎司的可乐吗？当前的肥胖危机一定程度上要归咎于20盎司的标准容积。）



And the tax revenue would go to the Prevention and Public Health Fund established by the Affordable Care Act. Just how it would be used can’t be predicted, but DeLauro suggests a variety of smart measures, including subsidies for fruits and vegetables in schools and for SNAP (food stamp) recipients and anti-soda marketing campaigns.


相关税收收入将交由《合理医疗费用法案》(Affordable Care Act)建立的预防及公共卫生基金(Prevention and Public Health Fund)。我们还无法判断这笔钱会怎么用，但是德劳罗提出了若干种聪明的措施，其中包括提供补贴让学校提供水果和蔬菜，资助“营养补充援助计划”（Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program，简称SNAP）也就是“食品券”的受益人，也为反碳酸饮料的宣传推广提供支持。



By this point you may be thinking that both DeLauro and I are bats, because it almost goes without saying that this bill, in this Congress, has as much chance of passing as real gun control, which is to say precisely none. But corny as it may sound, these things take time, and you have to start somewhere: The first national health care act was proposed in 1939, and the modern history of anti-tobacco legislation began in the 1960s. Both are now powerful realities.


这时，你可能会认为德劳罗和我都有点神经不正常，因为在本届国会，这个提案得到通过的概率，与真正的枪支管控得到通过的概率几乎一样，也就是说完全不可能。尽管听起来或许有些老生常谈，但是这些东西都需要慢慢来，而且必须从某处开始：第一个全国性的卫生保健法案是1939年提出来的，反烟草法案的现代历史则开始于上世纪60年代。这两项法案现在都成为了现实。



“I’m not a Pollyanna,” DeLauro said to me earlier this week, and she thinks it’s time: “I’ve been looking at this issue for a while, and I wanted to get it right. We are in the midst of a dual epidemic of obesity and diabetes, we need to do something about it, and we can’t rely on industry to deal with this voluntarily.”


“我不是盲目乐观，”德劳罗本周早些时候对我说，她认为现在时机已到：“我研究这件事已经有一段时间了，我希望能做好它。目前肥胖症和糖尿病十分流行，我们需要对这种情况采取一些措施，我们不能依靠行业自愿来解决。”



That’s for sure; if there were an affordable and harmless sugar substitute that met with widespread public approval, the industry would happily use it, but barring that they’re going to sell all the sugar-sweetened beverages they can persuade consumers to buy.


确实。如果有一种廉价、无害的物质能取代糖，并能得到公众普遍的认可，饮料产业就会开心地使用这种东西。但如果没有，他们就会出售能说服消费者购买的所有含糖饮料。



Which is why we need soda taxes, and why they’re precisely the kinds of public health measures the federal government should be actively pursuing. States’ rights are fine for some things, but why should the people of Illinois, for example, be measurably healthier than the people of neighboring Wisconsin, which is precisely what will happen a number of years from now if Illinois were to pass a soda tax?


正因为如此，我们才需要对碳酸饮料征税，联邦政府也才应该积极采取这类公共卫生措施。在某些事情上，州的权利应该得到尊重，但为什么伊利诺伊州的人，就应该明显比邻州威斯康星的人更健康？如果伊利诺伊州通过对碳酸饮料征税的法案，几年后恰恰就会发生这样的情况。



DeLauro is the right person for this. She has a history when it comes to noble and seemingly ill-fated gestures. For example, she introduced a bill requiring calorie counts on restaurant menus more than 10 years ago and was then regarded, she says, as “the crazy aunt in the attic.” Yet a provision for menu labeling was included in the Affordable Care Act. (Sadly, the F.D.A. and the administration are both heel-dragging on this.)


德劳罗是这件事的合适人选。对于尽管崇高，但是运气不佳的政策姿态，她过去就有过经验。比如，十多年前，她提出了一项法案，要求在餐厅菜单上标注卡路里数。她说，当时自己被认为是“阁楼上的疯阿姨”。不过，要求菜单进行标注的条款写进了《合理医疗费用法案》。（可惜的是，FDA和联邦政府执行都不积极。）



With coalition-building (the American Public Health Association and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, among others, are supporting the SWEET Act), education and continuing research and revelations about the damage wrought by high sugar consumption, we should see increased support for regulation of the marketing and sales of what’s sometimes called “liquid candy.”


通过建立联盟（美国公共卫生协会[American Public Health Association]、公共利益科学中心[Center for Science in the Public Interest]等机构支持《甜蜜法案》）、教育、持续不断的研究，以及报道糖分摄入过量造成的伤害，应该就会有越来越多的人支持对所谓的“液体糖果”的推广和销售进行监管。



But DeLauro deserves kudos for bringing this to the House floor now; it’s a major health issue that should wait no longer. When a generation passes, and people look back and ask, “What do we wish we had acted on more quickly?” there are three answers that come to my mind instantly: economic inequality, climate change and diet. The first may never be remedied; the second is the great global challenge of our time. The third — especially when it comes to limiting sugar consumption — is, no pun intended, a piece of cake. Let’s get it done.


德劳罗要将这项法案提交到众议院讨论，单是这一点就值得称赞：这件重大的公共卫生议题不能再等了。一代人的时间消逝后，如果人们回顾过去并追问，“我们当初对哪个问题应该行动更果断？”我的头脑里能立即想到三个答案：经济不平等、气候变化和饮食。第一个问题或许根本没有办法补救，第二个问题是我们这个时代巨大的全球挑战。第三个问题——尤其谈到限制糖分摄入——不过就是一块蛋糕的问题，这里没有双关的意思。所以，把这件问题解决掉吧。







翻译：陈柳、陈亦亭


Introducing the National Soda Tax

By MARK BITTMAN August 05, 2014


观点

我们为什么应该对碳酸饮料征税

马克·比特曼 2014年08月05日



Get this: Rosa DeLauro, the brave and beloved 12-term congresswoman from New Haven, will be introducing a bill in the House of Representatives Wednesday that would require a national tax on sugar-sweetened beverages.


看看这个：来自纽黑文市的罗莎·德劳罗(Rosa DeLauro)勇敢而受人喜爱，她已经当了12届国会议员。周三，她将在众议院提出一个要求在全国范围内对含糖饮料征税的法案。



And it’s about time. You know the big picture, even if you’ve forgotten the details, so I’m going to spare you the stats about obesity and diabetes that have been reiterated here and elsewhere ad infinitum. (If you want a refresher course, see this.) Suffice it to say that sugar-sweetened beverages are linked to obesity and diabetes, and that some form of control is needed. Many sugar-sweetened beverages contain more sugar per bottle than the American Heart Association’s recommended daily limit and the Department of Agriculture’s guidelines for sugar. (The Food and Drug Administration has not set standards for sugar consumption.)


现在正是时候。即使你已经忘了具体细节，你也知道总体情况如何，所以我就不再赘述肥胖和糖尿病的统计数据了，无论是在这里还是在其他地方，这些数据一直在反复出现。（如果你想再了解一下，请看这里。）完全可以说含糖饮料与肥胖症和糖尿病有关，所以需要采取某种形式的控制。许多含糖饮料中，每瓶的含糖量都超出了美国心脏协会(American Heart Association)推荐的每日上限，以及农业部(Department of Agriculture)的糖分摄入指导量。美国食品与药品管理局（Food and Drug Administration，简称FDA）没有设定糖消耗的相关标准。



The Obama administration made a tiny bit of noise about a soda tax back in 2009, but quickly backed off and has been silent on the subject since. For the last few years, there have been numerous attempts to get a significant (I’d call 10 percent of the price meaningful) tax on soda and other sugary drinks in a variety of cities and states. Berkeley, San Francisco and Illinois all have current initiatives, and, predicts Randy Shaw of the online daily BeyondChron, “Berkeley’s soda tax will pass.”


2009年，奥巴马政府曾比较低调地表态支持过一项对碳酸饮料征税的举措，但后来迅速做出让步，其后便再未提及此事。过去几年里，多个城市和州都曾多次尝试对碳酸饮料和其他含糖饮料征收高额税收（我认为售价的10%才是有意义的）。伯克利、旧金山和伊利诺伊州目前都有相关提案，在线日报BeyondChron的兰迪·肖(Randy Shaw)预计，“伯克利的碳酸饮料征税提案将会得到通过。”





That’ll be forceful, because a well-crafted soda tax is likely to work to reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, and therefore obesity, and therefore diabetes, and therefore health care costs, and to raise money for health education about the dangers of overconsumption of sugar.


这个举措将会很有力，因为如果我们有设计良好的碳酸饮料征税政策，很可能就会减少人们对含糖饮料的消费，从而减少肥胖症及糖尿病，降低医疗保健支出，还可以筹集资金用于健康教育，告诉人们食糖过多的危害。



But a national tax would be much tidier. Just eight months after it took effect, Mexico’s soda tax is starting to show positive results — consumption is down, at least — and we could expect a similar performance from DeLauro’s proposed bill. The SWEET Act (as she’s calling it) would amend the I.R.S. code and charge a penny per teaspoon of sugar, high-fructose corn syrup or other caloric sweeteners — “to be paid by the manufacturer, producer or importer of such products.” This would mean roughly a dime per can of soda, closer to 20 cents for a 20-ounce bottle or most medium-size soft drinks at restaurants. (Remember 6.5-ounce Cokes? The 20-ounce standard in part explains the obesity crisis.)


不过，实施全国性的征税政策会更加利落。墨西哥的碳酸饮料税仅仅过了八个月就产生了积极的效果——至少消费量已经降低——我们预期德劳罗的提案也能带来相似的结果。她把这个法案叫作《甜蜜法案》(The SWEET Act)，法案将对国税局(IRS)税法进行修订，并对每茶匙糖、高果糖浆和其他含热量的甜味剂收取1美分——“这些钱将由此类产品的制造商、生产商或进口商来支付。”这就意味着每罐碳酸饮料要付大概10美分，一瓶20盎司的饮料，或者餐馆里大多数的中杯软饮要付将近20美分。（还记得6.5盎司的可乐吗？当前的肥胖危机一定程度上要归咎于20盎司的标准容积。）



And the tax revenue would go to the Prevention and Public Health Fund established by the Affordable Care Act. Just how it would be used can’t be predicted, but DeLauro suggests a variety of smart measures, including subsidies for fruits and vegetables in schools and for SNAP (food stamp) recipients and anti-soda marketing campaigns.


相关税收收入将交由《合理医疗费用法案》(Affordable Care Act)建立的预防及公共卫生基金(Prevention and Public Health Fund)。我们还无法判断这笔钱会怎么用，但是德劳罗提出了若干种聪明的措施，其中包括提供补贴让学校提供水果和蔬菜，资助“营养补充援助计划”（Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program，简称SNAP）也就是“食品券”的受益人，也为反碳酸饮料的宣传推广提供支持。



By this point you may be thinking that both DeLauro and I are bats, because it almost goes without saying that this bill, in this Congress, has as much chance of passing as real gun control, which is to say precisely none. But corny as it may sound, these things take time, and you have to start somewhere: The first national health care act was proposed in 1939, and the modern history of anti-tobacco legislation began in the 1960s. Both are now powerful realities.


这时，你可能会认为德劳罗和我都有点神经不正常，因为在本届国会，这个提案得到通过的概率，与真正的枪支管控得到通过的概率几乎一样，也就是说完全不可能。尽管听起来或许有些老生常谈，但是这些东西都需要慢慢来，而且必须从某处开始：第一个全国性的卫生保健法案是1939年提出来的，反烟草法案的现代历史则开始于上世纪60年代。这两项法案现在都成为了现实。



“I’m not a Pollyanna,” DeLauro said to me earlier this week, and she thinks it’s time: “I’ve been looking at this issue for a while, and I wanted to get it right. We are in the midst of a dual epidemic of obesity and diabetes, we need to do something about it, and we can’t rely on industry to deal with this voluntarily.”


“我不是盲目乐观，”德劳罗本周早些时候对我说，她认为现在时机已到：“我研究这件事已经有一段时间了，我希望能做好它。目前肥胖症和糖尿病十分流行，我们需要对这种情况采取一些措施，我们不能依靠行业自愿来解决。”



That’s for sure; if there were an affordable and harmless sugar substitute that met with widespread public approval, the industry would happily use it, but barring that they’re going to sell all the sugar-sweetened beverages they can persuade consumers to buy.


确实。如果有一种廉价、无害的物质能取代糖，并能得到公众普遍的认可，饮料产业就会开心地使用这种东西。但如果没有，他们就会出售能说服消费者购买的所有含糖饮料。



Which is why we need soda taxes, and why they’re precisely the kinds of public health measures the federal government should be actively pursuing. States’ rights are fine for some things, but why should the people of Illinois, for example, be measurably healthier than the people of neighboring Wisconsin, which is precisely what will happen a number of years from now if Illinois were to pass a soda tax?


正因为如此，我们才需要对碳酸饮料征税，联邦政府也才应该积极采取这类公共卫生措施。在某些事情上，州的权利应该得到尊重，但为什么伊利诺伊州的人，就应该明显比邻州威斯康星的人更健康？如果伊利诺伊州通过对碳酸饮料征税的法案，几年后恰恰就会发生这样的情况。



DeLauro is the right person for this. She has a history when it comes to noble and seemingly ill-fated gestures. For example, she introduced a bill requiring calorie counts on restaurant menus more than 10 years ago and was then regarded, she says, as “the crazy aunt in the attic.” Yet a provision for menu labeling was included in the Affordable Care Act. (Sadly, the F.D.A. and the administration are both heel-dragging on this.)


德劳罗是这件事的合适人选。对于尽管崇高，但是运气不佳的政策姿态，她过去就有过经验。比如，十多年前，她提出了一项法案，要求在餐厅菜单上标注卡路里数。她说，当时自己被认为是“阁楼上的疯阿姨”。不过，要求菜单进行标注的条款写进了《合理医疗费用法案》。（可惜的是，FDA和联邦政府执行都不积极。）



With coalition-building (the American Public Health Association and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, among others, are supporting the SWEET Act), education and continuing research and revelations about the damage wrought by high sugar consumption, we should see increased support for regulation of the marketing and sales of what’s sometimes called “liquid candy.”


通过建立联盟（美国公共卫生协会[American Public Health Association]、公共利益科学中心[Center for Science in the Public Interest]等机构支持《甜蜜法案》）、教育、持续不断的研究，以及报道糖分摄入过量造成的伤害，应该就会有越来越多的人支持对所谓的“液体糖果”的推广和销售进行监管。



But DeLauro deserves kudos for bringing this to the House floor now; it’s a major health issue that should wait no longer. When a generation passes, and people look back and ask, “What do we wish we had acted on more quickly?” there are three answers that come to my mind instantly: economic inequality, climate change and diet. The first may never be remedied; the second is the great global challenge of our time. The third — especially when it comes to limiting sugar consumption — is, no pun intended, a piece of cake. Let’s get it done.


德劳罗要将这项法案提交到众议院讨论，单是这一点就值得称赞：这件重大的公共卫生议题不能再等了。一代人的时间消逝后，如果人们回顾过去并追问，“我们当初对哪个问题应该行动更果断？”我的头脑里能立即想到三个答案：经济不平等、气候变化和饮食。第一个问题或许根本没有办法补救，第二个问题是我们这个时代巨大的全球挑战。第三个问题——尤其谈到限制糖分摄入——不过就是一块蛋糕的问题，这里没有双关的意思。所以，把这件问题解决掉吧。







翻译：陈柳、陈亦亭