Soda Taxes Part Two – The Industry Creates A Citizens Coalition

Does the potential revenue from soda taxes persuade anyone to give anyone a second thought?

no new taxes

Not a chance, says the group Americans Against Food Taxes.  Americans Against Food Taxes is a “coalition of concerned citizens” that is strictly opposed to the sweetened beverage taxes.  However, on more than cursory view, you find that it is actually a front for the American Beverage Association.  (The media contact page leads you directly to their representatives.)  They took out a whole page ad in The Washington Post which urged congress not to “tax our groceries”.

Of course, soda taxes would seriously damage the industry’s profits, so it’s not surprising that the American Beverage Association is defending itself more actively.  Researchers like Dr. Brownell at Yale report that just like with cigarette purchases, consumer spending on sugary beverages would decline as prices rise.  Plus, the sweetened beverage industry has seemingly been under constant attack in myriad other ways as of late:

Across the country, many schools have removed soda vending machines saying they should not be plying children with sugary drinks.

Last month, the American Heart Association urged people to reduce their intake of sugary foods and beverages to lower the risk of conditions like obesity and high blood pressure — singling out soft drinks as a prime culprit.

Even President Obama has voiced a cautious openness to the tax.

”I actually think it’s an idea that we should be exploring,” he said, in a recent interview in Men’s Health magazine. ”There’s no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda. And every study that’s been done about obesity shows that there is as high a correlation between increased soda consumption and obesity as just about anything else.”

But Mr. Obama acknowledged that there would be significant resistance to such a tax.

Kelly D. Brownell, the lead author of the study and director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale, said in an interview that a penny-an-ounce tax would have an immediate and powerful impact on the nation’s elevated obesity rate.

The New York Times

Furthermore, the money from a soda tax could very well pay for at least some of the health care reform measures in the works.  The Baucus health care bill, which is estimated to cost $774 billion over ten years, called for “an array of taxes and fees on high-end group insurance plans, drug and medical device makers, and other sources” to pay for itself.  No soda taxes or the like were mentioned, but according to research of the sort that lead to the soda tax revenue calculator they could make a rather big dent in health care payments.

The American Beverage Association is huge in terms of dollars available, but does it have the same power and influence as the insurance companies or the farm lobby?  Do the benefits so outweigh the negative impact on the soda industry that their dollars won’t matter? (Ha!) Will actual citizens join the group Americans Against Food Taxes?  As usual when it comes to food and politics, we shall see…

September 30, 2009  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Health, Politics, Science & Technology

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