Taxes on sugary sodas quench revenue-thirsty cities

Advocates argue monies can help combat obesity

For more than a decade, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other beverage companies have fought mightily against efforts to tax sugary sodas, defeating more than three dozen such proposals around the country.

But this month, voters in San Francisco, Oakland and Albany, Calif., as well as Boulder, Colo., stunned the industry by approving ballot measures in favor of soda taxes. Cook County, Ill., followed a few days later, bringing a soft-drink tax to Chicago and surrounding areas. They are joining Berkeley, Calif., which passed a tax two years ago, and Philadelphia, which passed one in June

With that public momentum, a soda tax may be coming to a city near you.

Once viewed as measures likely to find support only in largely health-conscious cities like Berkeley and Boulder, soda taxes have emerged as a bountiful revenue source for cash-strapped local governments to fund early childhood education, public safety and deficit reduc- tion. Soda tax advocates say they believe more cities will consider their own taxes on sweetened beverages to combat obesity and to finance local programs.

“There’s a momentum with these taxes that will be hard for the industry to stop,” said Kelly Brownell, dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. “I expect a year or two from now that the taxes will be widespread.”

Even so, beverage makers say they are not convinced that soda taxes will be widely adopted. With the help of the beverage association, they have effectively painted the taxes as unfair nanny-state measures that are bad for business and impose a disproportionate burden on the poor.

“I’m originally from Iowa, born and bred, and I just don’t see this discrimi- natory, regressive tax being embraced by Iowans or Midwesterners or Southerners and others in a large swath of the country,” said Susan Neely, the president of the beverage association.

But public opinion on soda has turned more negative in recent years, with a growing share of Americans believing that sugary drinks contribute to obesity, Type 2 diabetes and other maladies.