Bill Clinton: Soda Tax Isn't the Way to Go

May 14, 2009 -- Though former President Clinton has focused on reducing childhood obesity since leaving the White House, he told ABC News Wednesday he does not favor the tax on soda that a nutrition group has publicly supported to pay for health care reform.

"I'm doing everything I can on this obesity thing," Clinton told ABC News. "I think the better thing to do is to give incentives right across the board for prevention and wellness."

"That's what I would do," he said.

Clinton weighed in on the debate over taxing soda one day after the Center for Science in the Public Interest urged a key congressional panel to adopt a tax on nondiet soft drinks. The group believes a soda tax along with a tax on alcoholic beverages would both promote health and generate revenues to help fund expanded health care coverage.

"Because soft drinks have been a major contributor to obesity in recent decades, and because obesity is a major cause of diabetes, hypertension, strokes, heart attacks and cancer, Congress should impose a new excise tax on nondiet soft drinks, including both carbonated and noncarbonated beverages," said Dr. Michael F. Jacobson, the executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, in written testimony submitted to the Senate Finance Committee.

Though Clinton does not favor taxing soda, his Alliance for a Healthier Generation has worked with beverage companies to reduce the caloric content of drinks sold in school vending machines. Full-calorie sodas were removed from school vending machines under a deal reached in 2006, replaced with lower-calorie, smaller-portion beverage options.

Speaking Wednesday at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Clinton characterized the beverage industry's decision to sell smaller, low-calorie drinks in schools as not only good policy but also good business.

"If we had a 9-year-old child in Harlem diagnosed with type 2 diabetes three years ago, we're at risk of having the first-generation of Americans with a shorter lifespan than their parents," said Clinton. "If you really want a healthy customer base, it's OK if you sell smaller drinks in schools, and healthier ones, and have healthier adult customers 10 years down the road."