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Opinion: March 30, 2011 buzz: Taxing sugary drinks won’t work; calling foul on Newt Gingrich

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Most viewed and commented: The soda tax fallacy

Levies won’t deter consumers from sugary drinks, writes David Gratzer, a physician and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Just look at the Big Mac, he says:

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Follow the Big Mac’s history over the last quarter-century and you’ll find a trend. While the Big Mac never changes — two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun, as the old jingle reminds us — its price often fluctuates. Occasionally, the price drops. Yet over time, modest price increases of as much as 10 or 20 cents a year outpaced inflation. In 2010, the Economist priced the sandwich at $3.58. Adjust for CPI, and that’s a 12.5% real increase over Big Mac prices in 2000. Despite frequent price increases, America continues to have Big Mac attacks, with the company selling more than 550 million of the sandwiches every year. If customers aren’t buying these burgers, it’s often because they’re ordering other McDonald’s products — like the Angus Bacon and Cheese burger, with 45% more calories, 35% more fat and twice the sodium of a Big Mac.

Read on for what might work instead.

Most shared: Gingrich on the radical Islamist wing of secular atheism

Will Newt Gingrich will say anything to fatten his base? That’s the impression he gave with a triple whammy sentence he recently uttered about his biggest fears concerning the future of the United States.

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