Faced with a projected $3 billion budget gap, New York Governor David Patterson said he's open to trying to get a tax on sugary sodas into next year's budget. It's a very unpopular idea that opponents call a "fat tax."

Hand soda to nutritionist Marion Nestle and all she sees is sugar. 

"I think liquid candy. That's what this is.You might as well just mainline sugar," Nestle, who is with the NYU Steinhardt School, said. 

A 20-ounce bottle, she said, contains roughly six tablespoons of sugar.  With little nutritional value, she calls soda an easy target for taxes.  Even though New York failed to move on a tax on sugared drinks earlier this year ---Nestle says she's not surprised it may be revisited next year. She also sees other states jumping on a so-called "fat tax". 

"I think lots of states are thinking about it because as the economy gets worse..Thery're increasingly worried about where to get money," said Nestle.

Noticing that trend is the CEO of Coca Cola, who recently wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that Coke didn't make America fat--that Americans need exercise, not a tax.  But Yale's Kelly Brownell thinks if there's a penny tax on every ounce of sugared drinks, it WILL make a difference. He co-authored a proposal, recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, calling for a national tax.  Add it up, he said, and it'll bring in nearly $15 billion in the first year; money that could be used for obesity-prevention programs.  

"If there's any evidence to indicate how much a tax would work it's how hard the soft drink industry is fighting this. They're lobbying extremely hard," Brownell said.

Representatives for the beverage industry say Arkansas and West Virginia--states that HAVE targeted taxes on sugar drinks--are also among states with the highest obesity rates, and they point out the economy is the reason NOT to raise taxes. 

"In these economic times people don't want to pay one penny more on anything let alone a penny an ounce, which would be a 12 cents increase on a regular can of soft drink. People don't want to pay that for items that are in all of our refrigerators," said Susan Neely, President of American Beverage Association.

Courtesy of Mary Snow with CBS