Missed this one
It's funny you mention that. I worked at a big office firm in our Twin Cities decade back, had its own Caribou coffee inside. People would gladly fork over $5-$15 a day for some coffee. The most comical ones were the iced drinks. Almost no expresso, mostly ice, large size pushing $10.
Meanwhile unlimited free mediocre coffee on every floor.
I think the tax would work, but our upper class would still be obese as hell.
In this same office, you could literally minimize walking to a few hundred paces. Shuttle bus in the parking lot to drop you off at main entrances, cube by the elevator. We had some whales
Likely, wealthy just have the ability to over indulge no matter what. But if the additional tax those people were paying on those high cost junk items did actually make its way into an appropriately administered subsidy on healthy food, I think that could be highly benifical for the masses.
The issue being the administration of those taxes. Here in Canada we have Nutritions North which is a gov't subsidy on healthy goods but the government just forks it to private business and let's them administer with essentially no oversight.
The last study don't indicated that only 66% of the subsidy made its way to consumers and that the companies were pocketing the rest buffering their bottom line. The other issue is they do not apply if to appropriate items. Seeing Nutritions North tags on boxes of lucky charms and other cereals drives me up the wall.
So competent oversight is needed for such a program.