Capitol Hill Forum Inserts Sugary Drinks and Tax Policy into Budget Debate

NCHC Writer

FEBRUARY 12, 2013 BY LARRY MCNEELY

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Health care stakeholders, nutrition advocates and budget experts highlighted the role that sugary drinks play in our nation’s rising health care costs and explored proposals to tax those beverages at a Capitol Hill forum today. According to one of the featured panelists, Dr. Michael Jacobson, Executive Director of CSPI, “Taxing soda could be an economic windfall for taxpayers, and a health windfall for all.” Jacobson spoke as part of an expert panel that included Dr. Rachel Johnson, Chair of the American Heart Association’s Nutrition Committee and the Bickford Professor of Nutrition at the University of Vermont, and Chuck Marr, Director of Federal Tax Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.  Rother moderated the event. According to Rother, “This is a matter of basic responsibility. If sugary drinks are inflating all our health care bills, why shouldn’t those responsible help cover that cost?”

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