CALIFORNIA SODA TAX WILL NOT CURB OBESITY?
Leaders Must Stop Trying to Make Money Off Of Health Crisis 

Scott: "Their proposed one-cent-per-ounce soda tax won't do a thing to reduce childhood obesity. Healthy kids are a product of how we live, not just what we buy."

(California) – Voters in Richmond and El Monte will soon make their voices heard on whether to pass new taxes on soda to boost the cashbox in cities that struggle to trim down budget gaps. Lane Scott of Independent Women's Forum (IWF) blasts advocates who support regulating sugary-sweetened drinks in the name of curbing obesity.

Lane Scott, California resident and visiting fellow at the Independent Women's Forum, issued the following statement:

"Politicians in El Monte and Richmond should get their fiscal houses in order before saddling citizens with yet another tax in the name of protecting the public health.

"Their proposed one-cent-per-ounce soda tax won't do a thing to reduce childhood obesity. Healthy kids are a product of how we live, not just what we buy. 

"Study after study has proven that soda taxes are a completely ineffective weapon in the fight against slimming down waistlines. 

"Our leaders must stop trying to make money off this health crisis and instead work with parents to implement the positive lifestyle changes at home and in our communities that kids so desperately need."

visit | www.iwf.org/food

MORE ON LANE SCOTT

Lane Scott is a PhD candidate and a John M Olin Foundation Fellow at the School of Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate University. She received her undergraduate degree from Great Books Liberal Arts Program at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, CA. Lane has written on education reform and health care policy at the Pacific Research Institute, and is a copyeditor at The Claremont Review of Books. She is currently writing her dissertation on F.A. Hayek and the American Right and will receive her PhD in the summer of 2012. Lane and her husband own a small farm in the California Gold Country where they raise cattle, sheep, chickens, peacocks and three young children.