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Soft Drink Manufacturers Lobby against Soda Tax
Soft drink manufacturers have been spending millions of dollars to lobby against a national excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, including soda, juice drinks and flavored milk, the Huffington Post reports. The Senate Finance Committee first proposed such a tax in May as a way to help pay for health reform, but it is not in any of the bills currently under consideration by Congress. Twenty-one companies and organizations have spent approximately $24 million lobbying against the tax during the first nine months of this year. One example of such efforts is the $5 million spent on a national advertising campaign aimed at Capitol Hill lawmakers to promote the coalition Americans Against Food Taxes. The American Beverage Association also spent more than $7.3 million on lobbying and advertising efforts in the third quarter of 2009, marking a six-fold increase over the previous quarter. Health officials and advocacy groups contend that a tax on sugary drinks, particularly those that contain high-fructose corn syrup, could not only reduce consumption of such beverages and improve health, but also generate enough revenue to close state budget gaps and support new health care programs. Lobbyists, however, argue that such beverages are not to blame for high obesity rates and say that a national excise tax would “unfairly single out one type of product and would be a particular burden on low-income people, who can least afford to pay a few cents more per can or bottle,” according to the Huffington Post. However, several state capitals, spurred by budgetary deficits, are said to be reexamining the possibility of such a tax. California, for example, hosted a hearing to examine the link between childhood obesity and sugar-sweetened beverages, and New York Gov. David Paterson (D) has recently revived a proposal to impose a tax on such beverages. According to a recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine, 33 states impose sales taxes on soda, although the taxes are too low to impact consumption and are not typically used to help raise revenue for health care. A recent study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest determined that a tax of as little as $0.07 per 12-ounce can could generate as much as $10 billion annually for states (Spolar/Eaton, Huffington Post, 11/4/09). (Editor’s Note: Three of the authors of the New England Journal of Medicine article, Kelly Brownell, Joe Thompson and Frank Chaloupka, lead RWJF-funded initiatives. The Center for Science in the Public Interest is also an RWJF grantee.)