August 23, 2012
The context is efforts to limit the consumption of sugary soft drinks, which Will assures us will not work and are a waste of government money. Will is appalled that the Centers for Disease Control gave a $3 million grant to the State of Rhode Island to study how procurement strategies in schools and other public institutions can be altered to reduce the consumption of sugary soft drinks.
It would be difficult to determine whether this $3 million grant (approximately 0.00008 percent of federal spending) was well used. However the Center for Disease Control reports that more than one-third of adults are obese, which adds $147 billion a year to national health care costs each year (@ 50,000 times the size of the grant).
While Will is confident that the government cannot do anything to reduce consumption of sugary drinks, it is worth noting that self-reported smoking rates fell from over 40 percent in the 70s to just over 20 percent today. It may not be easy to design a strategy that will be as effective in reducing the consumption of sugary drinks, but given the enormous financial costs and health costs associated with obesity, it is not obviously foolish to use a small portion of the federal budget to experiment with various alternatives.
Does Will think the country would be better off with no cigarette taxes or anti-smoking campaigns, even if it meant that 40 percent of adults were still smoking?
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