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NEWS ABOUT: soda tax

French 'Cola Tax' Starts Next Week

Tax on soda will help state coffers, rising obesity

(Newser) - Two things in France keep getting bigger: the deficit and the nation's waistline . To fight both simultaneously, a new "cola tax" will go into effect on New Year's Day, reports Der Spiegel . The tax will be a little more than a penny per can on Coke and... More »

Bittman: Time to Tax Junk Food

With obesity costing US billions, gov't must help health

(Newser) - With the "Standard American Diet" producing ever more heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, it's time to tax junk food and subsidize vegetables, writes Mark Bittman in the New York Times . "Right now it’s harder for many people to buy fruit than Froot Loops," he says,... More »

Government Shouldn't Moralize About Our Food

Leave that to the private marketplace

(Newser) - The government has a wide range of choices when it comes to encouraging public health, from hands-off (the preference of libertarians) to so-called sin taxes to outright bans on, say, junk food in schools. Here's one option they need to stop: paying for ad campaigns that vilify certain foods, writes... More »

Soda Tax Threat a Boon for Food Lobbyists

Industry pours millions into fight against it

(Newser) - Capitol Hill’s flirtation with a national excise tax on sugary drinks has been good for someone: food lobbyists. Soda makers, supermarkets, and fast-food restaurants have spent more than $24 million fighting the tax, the Huffington Post reports. “We are reacting to the situation we find ourselves in,"... More »

Soda Tax Deserves to Fizzle

It won't help fat people, or poor people, but will line gov't coffers

(Newser) - Taxing soda is at best a stupid idea and at worst a cynical ploy by a money-grubbing government, writes Katherine Mangu-Ward for Reason. Here's why:
  • Sin taxes don't work: "None of the nickel-and-dime proposals on the table is large enough to discourage soda drinking," Mangu-Ward writes. "And
... More »

'Fat Tax' Is Really a Poor Tax

(Newser) - With Congress contemplating a trillion dollar health care bill, the idea of the “fat tax” has come back into vogue as a way to slim down Americans. Supporters say junk food is every bit the addictive drug that cigarettes are, designed by food scientists to be “hyperpalatable,”... More »

Health Experts Call for Soda Tax

Critics say it won't reduce obesity

(Newser) - Health experts say a tax on sugary sodas would take a big bite out of the obesity epidemic, ABC News reports. Taxing "sugar-sweetened beverages is really a double-win," said the co-author of a new paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine. "We can raise much-needed... More »

Soda Tax Makes Good Sense

(Newser) - The soda tax is a great idea, and its probable death at the hands of lobbyists serves to highlight all the problems with our tax system, writes David Leonhardt in the New York Times. The current system doesn’t raise enough money, and it’s “complex in all the... More »

Congress Weighs Soda Tax

A few cents on every can could improve health

(Newser) - With health care reform expected to run the government around $1.2 trillion, Congress is looking for ways to pay for it. A new idea bouncing around Capitol Hill is a soda tax, reports the Wall Street Journal. “Soda is clearly one of the most harmful products in the... More »

Tax Soda: It's the New Tobacco

Less obese, less diabetic America just a couple of laws away

(Newser) - The cigarette tax "was the biggest health care breakthrough in the last 40 years in the United States," and its successor may be the 18% tax on non-diet soda New York Gov. David Patterson is pitching, writes Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. Not only do empty... More »

NY Guv Seeks 'Obesity Tax' on Soft Drinks

Tax on 'liquid candy' would raise $404M

(Newser) - New Yorkers with a hankering for the “Real Thing” may be paying 15% extra if lawmakers pass Gov. David Paterson's proposal to add an “obesity tax” on non-diet soda, reports the New York Daily News. The state’s doctors said the move—which could raise $404 million—would... More »

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