Paying pop tax still worth every penny to state’s residents

Training health care providers still goes better with the pop tax.
In 1951, the Legislature approved a tax on soft drinks to fund the construction of WVU’s new Health Sciences Center and the then University Hospital.
That excise tax has since provided hundreds of millions of dollars for medical education to WVU Health Sciences for everything from salaries and services to information technology and utilities.
Currently, that 1 cent tax on each 16.9 ounces of soft drink, 80 cents on a gallon or 84 cents on 4 liters of soft-drink syrup and 1 cent per ounce of powdered drink, collects about $15 million annually.
In some years, WVU has maintained it collects less than $15 million and only budgeted $13.7 million in fiscal year 2019.
Like so many bills introduced in the Legislature year after year, some variation of SB 358 — to repeal this excise tax on soft drinks — is a constant.
Though some will take our long-time support for this tax akin to rooting for the home team, our reasons go far beyond that simple assumption.
For instance, the benefits of this virtually benign tax revenue are literally untold.
If say these benefits ended with assisting WVU’s School of Medicine to serve more than 2,500 students or helping its faculty provide advanced care to more than 100,000 state residents that would seem more than enough.
But across the state and the nation, graduates of WVU’s School of Medicine may not perform miracles, but they have diagnosed, treated, healed and cured untold numbers of patients and countless cases of suffering.
Their contributions to health and medicine do not stop once they graduate, or leave one hospital, research facility or state for another, either. Indeed, their education and skills are truly the gift that just keeps giving to others for decades.
With this legislation it’s easy to see where it would hurt, but we cannot see how removing a 1 cent tax on a bottle of pop is going to help anyone.
And those who make the argument that supporting medical education and improving this one school to the detriment of the state are wrongheaded.
WVU Hospitals’ facilities are stretched far and wide not just in our region but around the state. If anything this is money well spent on the state.
Last year, a similar bill would have diverted the pop tax to shore up the Public Employees Insurance Agency. That bill was parked in a House committee and never emerged. We urge the Legislature to perform the same operation on this bill in a Senate committee.
Those who enjoy the occasional pop probably never give that 1 cent tax a thought.
But the next time you give your health or an ailment a thought it will look to be worth every penny.