By Rick Pfeiffer
Niagara Gazette
NIAGARA FALLS — Reports of the death of Gov. David Paterson’s proposed tax on sugary drinks may be premature.
That was the message New York’s Health Commissioner, Dr. Richard Daines, delivered in a Tuesday meeting with the Niagara Gazette editorial board.
“As long as there’s an open state budget, it’s not over,” Daines said of efforts to add a penny per ounce to the price of soda and sugary drinks with less than 70 percent fruit juice.
Daines and other supporters of the tax proposal say it will help fight obesity while also providing much need funding for state health care programs that might otherwise be eliminated to close a multi-billion dollar state budget deficit.
The so-called “Sugar Tax” is projected to generate $1 billion in revenues annually when fully implemented and reduce consumption of sugary drinks by 15 percent. Daines said the consumption reduction would yield enormous health benefits.
He said sugary drinks are not the only cause of obesity, but it is one the state can control.
“If we’re going to bring health care costs down, we have to attack the (sugar) cost curve,” Daines said. “If Americans keep getting heavier, we can’t get these costs down.”
According to Daines, while their serving sizes have risen, the cost of sugared drinks has stayed low, they are universally available, they are relentlessly marketed and uniquely non-filling — “They don’t tell our bodies not to eat something else.”
The proposed tax has been furiously attacked by the beverage industry, which argues it will hurt sales and eliminate jobs. Daines fired back that the beverage industry isn’t interested in creating jobs.
“They’re not in the jobs business, they’re in the profit business,” Daines said. “They’ve recently begun buying up independent bottlers (to increase profits) and they’re eliminating those jobs.”
The health commissioner also took on beverage industry claims that lowering obesity levels is about increasing the exercise people get, not reducing the sugar in what they drink.
“(Weight loss) is 80 percent (calorie) intake and 20 percent exercise,” Daines said. “(The tax) needs to happen. Without this, we aren’t going to start to reverse the obesity trend.”
Political observers in Albany have predicted the sugar tax will fail in the closely divided state Senate. Daines says if that happens then lawmakers need to be prepared to make more cuts in state spending, including dollars for health care.
