The sweetened soft drinks and, more generally, drinking diet soda instead, we do have to be careful that in our push for nutritional choices we don't inadvertently raise other health concerns. If there are other health concerns, perhaps from exposure to certain additives that might be used to replace sweeteners, we would need to take that into consideration when the we think about what we're taxing and what people are likely to substitute toward.
On October 5th, 2006. See this statement in context.