Many countries require cigarette smokers to pay particularly high taxes on their purchases of cigarettes; similar taxes are being considered for unhealthy foods. The policy of imposing high taxes on cigarettes and other unhealthy products has a number of social benefits.
First of all, the taxes discourage people from indulging in unhealthy behaviors. Raising taxes on cigarettes, for instance, leads people to buy fewer of them. Smoking has declined as taxes on tobacco have risen, showing that these taxes do work to make society healthier. It can be expected that imposing similar taxes on unhealthy food and beverages would help reduce obesity rates.
Second, taxes of this kind are financially fair. When people get sick as a result of their smoking or eating unhealthy foods, they create medical costs. It is unfair that everyone in the society, including nonsmokers and people who follow a healthy diet, should contribute equally to covering these costs. Taxing people who engage in unhealthy behaviors creates extra income that can be used to cover the medical costs. In this way, some of the financial burden is shifted from all of society to just those who choose to participate in the unhealthy activities.
Finally, the high rate of taxation on cigarettes significantly increases revenue for the government. In addition to using this tax revenue on medical assistance, governments often use the revenue for other projects that benefit public welfare, such as building stadiums or creating public parks. Even basic government-supported services like public education benefit from these taxes. Thus, the taxes on cigarettes, and the proposed taxes on unhealthy foods, benefit everyone.
The reading and the lecture are both about the cons and pros of the taxes on unhealthy products like cigarettes and Junk food. The author of the reading feels that taxes on harmful products have a myriad of benefits. The lecturer challenges the claims made by the author. She is of the opinion that each argument in the article can be challenged.
To begin with, the author argues that high taxes on unhealthy products will make them less likely to be sold. This specific argument is challenged by the lecturer. She claims that taxes might not necessarily lead to healthier behavior. Additionally, she says that people will buy cheaper and more harmful unhealthy products such as cheaper cigarettes which have more toxic chemicals.
Secondly, the writer suggests that putting taxes on unhealthy products is fair behavior. In the article, it is said that people who use these kinds of products will pay their medical costs from taxes. The lecturer, however, rebuts this by mentioning that some people argue that taxes on these products financially unfair. She elaborates on this by bringing up the point that taxes do not account for the personal income of the individuals and will not be fair especially for the people with lower income.
Finally, the author posits that the government will use the money from these taxes to build and develop the country. Moreover, in the article, it is stated that the taxes will flourish the economy of the country. In contrast, the lecturer's position is that the government will depend heavily on these taxes because they will be a great contributor to the country's income. She notes that the government will not adopt policies that may lead to the loss of this income.
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 218, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ful products have a myriad of benefits. The lecturer challenges the claims made by ...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, however, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, in contrast, such as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 10.4613686534 105% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 5.04856512141 238% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 12.0772626932 141% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 22.412803532 147% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 36.0 30.3222958057 119% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 5.01324503311 120% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1427.0 1373.03311258 104% => OK
No of words: 289.0 270.72406181 107% => OK
Chars per words: 4.93771626298 5.08290768461 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.12310562562 4.04702891845 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.47819962915 2.5805825403 96% => OK
Unique words: 140.0 145.348785872 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.484429065744 0.540411800872 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 432.0 419.366225166 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 3.25607064018 246% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 13.0662251656 122% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 21.2450331126 85% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 34.9141805002 49.2860985944 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 89.1875 110.228320801 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.0625 21.698381199 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.1875 7.06452816374 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 4.45695364238 224% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.27373068433 70% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.287003462119 0.272083759551 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0958869391659 0.0996497079465 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0719563167439 0.0662205650399 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.18199979303 0.162205337803 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0455711798062 0.0443174109184 103% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.9 13.3589403974 82% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 53.8541721854 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 11.0289183223 83% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.08 12.2367328918 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.92 8.42419426049 94% => OK
difficult_words: 62.0 63.6247240618 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 10.7273730684 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 10.498013245 88% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.