With state lawmakers unwilling to pass a penny-per-ounce tax on non-diet sodas and other sugary drinks, most people have given up hope that the so-called fat tax will roll into this year's budget. But State Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines—whom you may recall from such classic videos as Soda Vs Milk—is holding on to the dream! In a profile in today's Times, Daines goes into "polemical overdrive," in hopes that the tax "might be revived during 11th-hour budget negotiations, when lawmakers are desperate." In Daines's eyes, the issue is just as much about economic disparity as it is about obesity:
I raised my kids on Park Avenue,” he said. “You can walk at least from 60th Street to 96th Street on Park Avenue. You won’t see a single soda billboard, you won’t see a single fast-food outlet, and I don’t think you could buy a soda. Basically, a child raised in that corridor has a soda-free day after school.”
But walk 30 blocks north to Harlem, he said, and the picture is different. “This is cheap, it’s heavily advertised, it tastes really good,” he said. “And then we plunge kids into that environment, and we say, if you have a problem, you lack self-control.”
Last month the Daily News detailed how State Senator Jeffrey Klein, who was "instrumental in getting the soda tax off the table," has raked in "at least $36,000 in campaign contributions from drink companies and special interest groups tied to the beverage industry since the tax was proposed in December 2008." Dr. Daines also blames the soft-drink lobby for mounting an effective campaign against the tax. "It scares the politicians away," he observed.
And from the good doctor's point of view, the consumer-choice argument against the Nanny State is simply "AstroTurf false-flag operations" financed by the beverage industry. "We know this elaborately with tobacco," Daines added. While lawmakers may have caved to Big Beverage, they are considering $1-per-pack increase in the state's cigarette tax!
