40% Tax on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages?

 A few days ago, I jokingly referred to George Orwell's "1984" after noting that Australia expected to save quite a bit of money if they could legislate lower salt content in process foods.  Well, I laughed a bit early since some authors published yesterday that a 40% tax on carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages could potentially generate $2.5B annually in additional tax revenue, mostly from high-income households they theorized, while leading to a 0.59kg/yr loss in weight per person because of a reduction by 12.4kcal/d per person.  Don't hold your breath but stranger things have been known to happen, especially given our current dire economy.