Soda taxes fall flat: Our view
The latest attack on America’s expanding waistlines is aimed at your wallet, as health advocates and lawmakers hope to tax consumers out of drinking so many sugary drinks.
In Philadelphia, which hosted last week’s Democratic convention, a tax of 1.5 cents per ounce on sugary drinks, and even on artificially sweetened diet drinks, will go into effect in January — making it the first major city with a soda tax. Voter initiatives for similar taxes will be on the November ballot in Oakland, San Francisco and Albany, Calif., and likely in Boulder, Colo. A similar measure passed in Berkeley, Calif., in 2014.
Americans, more than one-third of whom are obese, would be better off if they did cut back on sugary drinks. But efforts to tax people out of the habit are likely to fall flatter than day-old cola.