Feel like you’re taxed enough already? More could be coming. There’s an early push to explore taxing soft drinks that are sweetened with sugars – all to get you to stop buying them. CBS 2′s Kristyn Hartman reports it’s all about obesity.
A coalition of groups is in the very early stages of mapping out a plan to fight fat in Illinois. Sugared beverage consumption has tracked with rising obesity rates – so it’s getting some attention.
Pop after pop might feel good going down, but it can put on the pounds. That’s the case with any higher calorie drink.
Illinois Public Health Institute CEO Elissa Bassler said, “Maybe changing the ways we use beverages can be a part of handling obesity.”
The idea is spreading across the country and here in Illinois, home to the fourth worst rate of childhood obesity. Enter tax talk.
“Some of the current research is talking about a penny or two cents an ounce as needed to be expensive enough to affect consumption,” said Bassler.
So if policy followed research, a two liter might cost you anywhere from 60 cents to $1.20 more.
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/soda.tax.obesity.2.1803209.html
First, they put soda machines in all the schools so we all grow up ingesting this poison. Next, comes GMO foods that are making us fat and killing us so NOW, we are being punished for eating and drinking what we had been told for so many years was not only good, but iconically American. When do we get to sue the food manufactures that way cigarette manufacturers have been sued?