Preckwinkle: Soda tax best option for cash- strapped Cook Co.

The Sun- Times’ latest editorial on the sweetened beverage tax proposes its repeal. This has become a popular refrain, though without any reasoned suggestion as to what Cook County might do to properly fund vital public health and safety services the tax supports.

The Editorial Board asks the County find a “less annoying way to pay the bills,” as if funding vital services at Cook County Health and SEND LETTERS, including your neighborhood or hometown and a phone number for verification purposes, to letters@ suntimes. com. Hospitals System or sheriff’s office is trivial or any other tax would not be characterized by those not forced to make difficult governance decisions as a nuisance.

Moreover, to try to make a quick point, the Editorial Board minimizes the health risks of artificially sweetened beverages, stating “a sugary drink tax on a Diet Coke is like a cigarette tax on a nicotine patch.”

Tell that to researchers at the American Heart Association who found that consumption of artificially sweetened beverages doubles the risk of stroke and increases the likelihood of dementia in people who consume one to six artificially sweetened drinks per week.

Let me be clear that when we faced a $ 174.6 million deficit in our Fiscal Year 2017 budget, we needed to find a revenue source that, along with expenditure cuts, would allow us to close that gap. We looked at various options and determined that if we needed to raise revenue we should find a source that would also produce benefits for our residents. So we settled on the sweetened beverage tax as it both 1) provides the revenue we need, and 2) serves a clear public health benefit.

Sometimes as a public official you have to tell people what they don’t want to hear, and for those now proposing repeal I would ask if they are willing to reverse the progress we have made in making CCHHS a leading provider of choice in the city. With the help of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion, CCHHS has transformed its ability to care for our highest- risk and most at- need neighbors, and I, for one, am not willing to go back.

We are working hard to create a more fair and equitable criminal justice system through significant changes in bond court, reducing the jail population and making critical changes in juvenile justice laws.

Thankfully the Circuit Court rejected the claim by the Illinois Retail Merchants Association that the tax was unconstitutional and lacked uniformity. We expect to prevail in the Appellate Court as well.

I was elected and then re- elected to institute a course correction in Cook County government. We have done so by balancing our budget, paying our bills, attacking our pension shortfall, improving services, being accountable, and improving services to our residents. That is the kind of responsible governance to which I am committed. Toni Preckwinkle, president,

Cook County Board