{"id":405988,"date":"2010-03-07T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:consumerfreedom.com:\/\/1b0386da0c77ceeac1de442f59cb6a38"},"modified":"2010-03-07T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-08T00:00:00","slug":"critics-sound-off-against-soda-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/405988","title":{"rendered":"Critics Sound Off Against Soda Taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe national momentum for soda taxes is unfortunately building as cash-strapped governments desperately search for new sources of revenue. Last week, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter proposed a 2-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks<\/a>. California’s Democratic Senate Majority Leader, Dean Florez, has introduced a soda tax. And for the second year in a row New York Governor David Paterson is floating his own similar proposal.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe good news amidst this tax-happy mayhem is that people are starting to speak out against the costs (and unfairness) of such taxes. Former Philadelphia Mayor John Street criticized Mayor Nutter’s soda tax<\/a> as punitive to the poor. “I just don’t know how you can put a 70 percent tax on a 2-liter bottle of Coke,” said Street. “It’s the poor people who are going to pay the sugar tax.” Mayor Street shares our view of the Nutter soda tax<\/a>. (We’re denouncing it for “penalizing individuals who make food choices that some people in city government don’t like.”)<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the state of Washington, Governor Christine Gregoire’s proposal to impose an excise tax of 5 cents for every 12 ounces of carbonated beverages has been met with a lack of enthusiasm usually reserved for castor oil.  State Representative Ross Hunter says he will not support the tax<\/a>, citing the negative economic impacts in a state already reeling from a 9.5 percent unemployment rate. “There’s a lot of good family-wage jobs that will be lost,” said Hunter. “That obviously factors in. I also just think it’s stupid.”<\/p>\n

\n\tBob Slack, vice president of Coca Cola Bottling Company of Washington, estimates that his company would likely reduce its workforce by 25 to 30 percent<\/a> if the Gregoire soda tax is imposed. And Carole Dawson, who owns the Bremerton Bottling Company, says she would probably have to eliminate “good-paying jobs.”<\/a> Dawson adds that “we already operate on a razor thin margin in a highly competitive marketplace.” A soda tax, she says, “will only depress our sales, and the effect will be felt throughout the entire local supply chain.”<\/p>\n

\n\tIt’s refreshing to see politicians and industry leaders highlight the detrimental economic effects of soda taxes. As we have reported<\/a>, there is no evidence that soda taxes would even accomplish much in reducing obesity rates anyway. Besides being bad science, soda taxes are also bad business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The national momentum for soda taxes is unfortunately building as cash-strapped governments desperately search for new sources of revenue. Last week, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter proposed a 2-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks. California’s Democratic Senate Majority Leader, Dean Florez, has introduced a soda tax. And for the second year in a row New York Governor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4054,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4054"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}