Soda tax would raise $1.7 billion, buoying school districts, study says

04-21-2011

By Lisa Vorderbrueggen/Contra Costa Times

Buy a Coke. Save a classroom. A study released Thursday estimates that a 1-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary sodas and other sweetened drinks would return $233 per student to California classrooms and fund childhood obesity prevention initiatives. "The science linking sugary drinks to the obesity epidemic is rock solid," said study author Harold Goldstein, with the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, who is a leading proponent behind the largely successful removal of junk food and sodas from school vending machines and cafeterias. "It's time to make sure that the cost of these beverages includes the social cost of the harm they are doing." The study is based on AB 669 by Assemblyman Bill Monning, D-Carmel, which would raise $1.7 billion statewide every year and send 85 percent of that to schools and local agencies and 15 percent to state-run anti-obesity programs. At a penny an ounce, Californians would need to buy the equivalent of 14 billion 12-ounce cans of soda, an average of a little more than a can a day for every man, woman and child in the state. (more...)

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Soda tax would raise $1.7 billion, buoying school districts, study says

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