Soft Drink Tax Could Generate $10 Billion Annually, Says CSPI

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has issued a paper claiming that a state tax on sugar-sweetened beverages “would yield billions of dollars in new revenue and counter the alarming risks of obesity, poor nutrition, and displacement of more healthful foods and beverages.” Echoing similar proposals published in the New England Journal of Medicine and by the Institute of Medicine, the CSPI report calls for “a modest new (or extra) tax of five cents per 12-ounce serving” that would nationally raise state revenues by “more than $7 billion annually, ranging from about $13 million in Wyoming to about $878 million in California.” The paper also includes a chart detailing “‘nickel-a-drink’ state revenue projections, based on national consumption data and pro rated for each state’s population.”

“President Obama is exactly right when he says kids are drinking too much soda,” stated CSPI Executive Director Michael Jacobson in a September 30, 2009, press release that makes note of a recent Men’s Health interview with the president. “Soda is dirt cheap and promotes expensive and debilitating diseases, which in turn runs up health-care costs at all levels of government. Federal, state and even local
governments would be wise to institute or increase taxes on a product that causes so much medical and financial harm.”