Just when you thought their tax burdens couldn’t get any bigger, three Bay Area cities, Chicago and Boulder, Colo., passed soft drink taxes last week.
Soda taxes were sold as anti-obesity measures, but this lightweight argument fails at several levels. Soft drinks account for 7 percent of calories consumed. If they are so toxic, why not tax cookies, cakes, candy and even orange juice? The argument that juice has Vitamin C may be true but that excuse only applies to where malnutrition or scurvy needs a cure. Research shows soda taxes do not reduce calorie consumption. They simply encourage people to substitute to other high-calorie drinks. They also are a regressive tax on the poor, who often favor Coke to Perrier.
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