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Our nation is sick. We face a health epidemic fueled by the overconsumption of sugar in
sweetened beverages, leading to soaring health care expenditures and lost productivity which
endanger the financial health of our nation. Today’s young people may be the first generation
in the history of the United States to live sicker and die younger than their parents’
generation. And if we don’t do something to improve our health, our nation will go
bankrupt trying to treat it. This is why my partner and I stand resolved,
that “the United States Federal Government should substantially reform its revenue generation
policies” in ways which treat the underlying causes and not just the symptoms. Far too
often, Federal taxes focus simply on generating income. Today, however, the economy is in
critical condition, so we need federal revenue generation policies to address underlying
issues. A primary factor in our nation’s financial health, if not THE primary factor,
is a physical health epidemic resulting from a substance abuse which seriously impacts
the health of a third of adult Americans. For today’s debate round we invite you to
judge on the basis of net benefits: Does the plan proposed by the affirmative team produce
greater advantages for the U.S. than the negative position?
Now let me start by defining two key terms: First, Sweetened Beverages, as defined by
the Department of Agriculture: “Sweetened Beverages include all beverages that are sweetened
through the addition of natural or artificial sweeteners.”
Second, Metabolic Syndrome is defined by the National Institutes of Health as “a group
of factors that raises your risk for heart disease, diabetes and stroke.”
Now consider the following facts, which link in this way:
Health Care is the Largest Single Federal Expense
Metabolic Syndrome is our Nation’s Largest Epidemic
Excessive Sugar Consumption Causes Metabolic Syndrome
Sweetened Beverages Provide Most of the Excess Sugar
Fact 1: Health Care is the Largest Single Federal Expense
In 2008, Peter Orszag, director of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, testified:
“Future growth in spending for — the federal government’s major health care programs
— will be the most important determinant of long-term trends in federal spending. Changing
those programs in ways that reduce the growth of costs — is ultimately the nation’s
central long-term challenge in setting federal fiscal policy.”
Fact 2: Metabolic Syndrome is our Nation’s Largest Epidemic
In April, 2011, scientific journalist Gary Taubes wrote an article for the New York Times
entitled Is Sugar Toxic? It reports: “Physicians and medical authorities [have
come] to accept the idea that a condition known as metabolic syndrome is a major, if
not the major, risk factor for heart disease and diabetes.”
Taubes goes on to explain that sugar is also heavily implicated in the development of cancer.
So how does Metabolic Syndrome develop? Fact 3: Excessive Sugar Consumption Causes
Metabolic Syndrome Robert Lustig is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics
at the University of California in San Francisco. In February, 2012, he and two colleagues published
an article in the journal Nature, summarizing the scientific consensus that sugar is the
central dietary factor in chronic diseases: “sugar induces all of the diseases associated
with metabolic syndrome. This includes: hypertension insulin resistance; diabetes; and the aging
process.” “A little [sugar] is not a problem, but a lot kills—slowly.”
Fact 4: Sweetened Beverages Provide Most of the Excess Sugar
A July, 2010 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture states:
“The average American consumes 22.5 teaspoons of added sugar per day, with almost half attributed
to sodas and fruit drinks.” Now let’s focus on two specific harms:
Harm 1: Poor Health and Premature Deaths As mentioned in the Taubes article above,
science has linked excessive consumption of sugar to the cancer, heart disease and diabetes
epidemics in our society. Harm 2: Health Care Costs are High, and Increasing
In their 2012 article in Nature, Lustig and his colleagues estimate:
“The United States spends $65 billion in lost productivity and $150 billion on health-care
resources annually for morbidities associated with metabolic syndrome. Seventy-five per
cent of all US health-care dollars are now spent on treating these diseases and their
resultant disabilities.” To address these harms, we submit the economic
and health solution proposed by Thomas Frieden, The head of the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. In 2009 Frieden and others proposed the following
plan. It was discussed seriously in Congress, but overturned in the face of more than 20
million dollars in beverage industry lobbying: Mandate:
The plan is an excise tax of one cent per ounce on every beverage with any added sweetener.
That’s 12 cents, collected from the manufacturer, on every 12oz. can of soda.
Agency: All necessary government branches Funding: There is no funding necessary for
this plan Timing: Six months after legislation is enacted.
Clarification: The Affirmative team reserves the right to clarify the plan in future speeches.
Finally, let’s explore the advantages of our plan:
Advantage 1: Improved Health and Saved Lives Lee Goldman, MD, is Dean of the Faculties
of Health Sciences and Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. He is one of five
authors of a joint study published in January 2012 which estimates that, just among adults
aged 25 to 64, “over a ten year period (2010-2020), the
penny-per-ounce tax could reduce new cases of diabetes by 2.6%, as many as 95,000 coronary
heart events, 8,000 strokes, and 26,000 premature deaths.” “A penny-per-ounce tax would
substantially reduce diabetes and heart disease among adults in the United States.”
Advantage 2: Health Care Costs Reduced Over Time
In February, 2012, Science Daily reported on a study analyzing the benefits from a penny
per ounce tax on sweetened beverages: “These health benefits represent more than
$17 billion over a decade in medical costs avoided for adults ages 25 to 64. … With
the estimated number of 860,000 fewer obese adults ages 25 to 64, and given the greater
reductions in consumption among younger people, the longer-term health benefits would be far
greater than the impacts during the first 10 years.”
This says that our plan would save an increasing amount each year through the reduction of
serious illness in our country. In this matter, the direction of change is far more important
than the speed of the change. Advantage 3: Increased Federal Revenue
There is a third advantage to our plan. A 2009 CBS news article, reporting on Senate
consideration of a soda tax, stated: “The Congressional Budget Office estimates
that a [fourth of a penny per ounce] tax would generate $24 billion over the next four years.”
Since our proposed tax is four times as high as what the CBO evaluated, our plan could
generate up to $24 billion each year. However our evidence also shows that this
tax will reduce consumption of sweetened beverages by 15–20%. So actual revenue will be closer
to $20 billion. To sum this up, we have documented the deadly
impact of sweetened beverages and the economic harm of the diseases they fuel. We have proposed
a substantial reform of U.S. revenue generation policies to save lives, improve the health
of our citizens, reduce federal health care expenditures, and increase federal revenue.
You, judge, have fiat power to do what intense beverage industry lobbying prevented Congress
from doing in 2009. Please take this opportunity to support the health of our citizens, and
the financial health of our nation, through your affirmative ballot.
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