▶ Your Answer : There are
various kinds of unhealthy foods: cigarette, fast foods, liquids, etc. Some
argues that these unhealthy foods should be taxed, maybe to cut demands of
them. In my opinion, however, taxing foods is not a good idea. It is a sort of
extra intervention of governments, and just the higher prices would not
function effectively.
First of all,
people’s health should not be controlled by government. ‘Control’ is not that a
good way of talking, but when the government changes the prices of foods on
their own, that would be a control. Being healthy is important, but it’s a
personal problem. How a person stays healthy is totally dependent on his own
decisions. There are so many examples from history where governments interfered
too much to people’s lives. And most of them are scorned nowadays: a government
taxed people with beard, and another one taxed buildings with big windows.
Additionally,
taxing is not that effective to cut consuming. Will people spend all that money
to buy healthy foods when unhealthy foods become more expensive? It’s not
guaranteed. Even if the prices are raised, demands for unhealthy foods would
not be diminished. Most of those unhealthy foods are beloved by people, and
some of the consumers are addicted to them. They will not stop buying, just
like some people around me. Some of them are heavy smokers, so they buy
particular cigarettes they prefer. When the taxes of the cigarettes raised,
they complained about the high prices, but they never stopped smoking.
Moreover, they soon forgot about the raised prices.
Of
course, unhealthy foods are not desirable. However, whether to buy those foods
or not is just dependent to people themselves. Governments should not interrupt
the markets in this way: controlling personal consuming. Moreover, adding taxes
on foods would not let their demands decline. So, unhealthy foods should not be
taxed by governments. |