We had a post here last week about soda taxes in Philadelphia and it seemed like common sense that by making sugary drinks more expensive, you are encouraging people to consume it less, which results in fewer people drinking it.
We can discuss this with no implication that there's a static amount of soda consumption in the world, or that people want to be obese from consuming it. We understand life is a series of choices, "when to consume sugary drinks" makes up some of them, and that by disincentivizing that choice, people are more likely to choose a different beverage.
Nobody "chooses" homelessness, but like anything else, becoming / staying homeless often is the result of numerous choices, some of which are easier than others for various reasons. When you artificially remove bad consequences from some of those choices, it is not surprising that those choices are made more often.
The big difference is, you can simply stop consuming soda drinks if the habit becomes too expensive, but if you are a homeless person, you cannot really just stop being homeless.
The claim isn't that you can "just stop being homeless."
> Nobody "chooses" homelessness, but like anything else, becoming / staying homeless often is the result of numerous choices, some of which are easier than others for various reasons. When you artificially remove bad consequences from some of those choices, it is not surprising that those choices are made more often.
Consuming soda is just one way people can become obese. The problem is obesity. If you are an obese person, you may not really be able to "just stop" being obese, but if policy leads to people choosing healthier beverages, it helps fight obesity.
...and the opposite is true, too. It would not be difficult to imagine what might happen if we subsidized soda until it was free, for example. Except we probably wouldn't have advocates claiming that because nobody wants to be obese, the incentives can't possibly be affecting the increase in soda consumption.
I see your point. I agree that we shouldn't incentivize drug consumption. However, the current way of de-incentivizing drug consumption through making it illegal doesn't seem to work well. Luckily, there is more than one way to de-incentivize something like that (look at the soda tax, for example!).
The issue with drugs (as opposed to soda) is that the illegality in itself a lot of times tends to make people homeless by heavily limiting their hosing/employment/etc. perspectives. De-incentivizing drug consumption by heavily taxing them and making the proceeds go towards rehabilitation for addicts and helping those people get on their feet and find employment? I am with you on that. But I cannot really support, in good conscience, punishing drug users to the point where they are pushed to become homeless.
> But I cannot really support, in good conscience, punishing drug users to the point where they are pushed to become homeless.
To a large extent I agree with your point here, but these cities are well beyond simply not punishing drug users.
Mobile safe injection sites, needle exchange programs, cash handouts, unfettered defecation in streets, naloxone handouts, lack of enforcement of petty crimes like vehicle break-ins and theft. There are plenty of policy decisions being made here that affect the choices people make, and none of that even touches on actually enforcing drug laws.
Moral and financial cases can be made for any of the above, and we can debate that, but to me it's really drinking the Kool-Aid to claim these don't encourage homelessness. They certainly make it easier to make bad decisions that can start or keep you on the track of homelessness.
You are missing the point, it isn't that simple. Doing the opposite might keep cities cleaner or reduce crime but the cost is significantly higher to maintain. A prison population is a social service that is incredibly expensive, the more enforcement there is, the more expensive it is per body. This doesn't solve the problem it just costs the taxpayer more for another non-solution.
> When you artificially remove bad consequences from some of those choices, it is not surprising that those choices are made more often.
There was a talk by a finance minister from singapore who was asked about his country's social safety net, and he replied to the effect of: we don't have a net, we have a trampoline.
Yep. Singapore is always the country I point to when opponents point at (insert area) which legalized drug use and saw numbers go down. They don't beat Singapore's numbers, and Singapore's approach is a lot different.
We can discuss this with no implication that there's a static amount of soda consumption in the world, or that people want to be obese from consuming it. We understand life is a series of choices, "when to consume sugary drinks" makes up some of them, and that by disincentivizing that choice, people are more likely to choose a different beverage.
Nobody "chooses" homelessness, but like anything else, becoming / staying homeless often is the result of numerous choices, some of which are easier than others for various reasons. When you artificially remove bad consequences from some of those choices, it is not surprising that those choices are made more often.