Stoopid politicians and the people who vote for them – After Passing Soda Tax To Curb Habit, Dems Insist Retailers Are Price-Gouging

Philadelphia’s soda tax should influence the conversation over the endless spiral of taxing and spending in America’s mismanaged, one-party big cities.

Don’t be as stoopid as Philadelphia voters…

There were some twists along the way. City Council reduced the tax to 1.5 cents per ounce, which decreased the amount expected to be raised to $91 million. The money-for-schools rationale was also jettisoned, to some extent, as the council re-allocated half the money to other programs (including city employee benefits,) most of which had nothing to do with education. And that public health angle? That got thrown out the window, too, as the city legislators decided to tax diet soda, also.

Pass This Tax Before People Know What It Does

In three months, the soda tax had gone from a public health initiative that would raise money for public schools to a tax that was purely about raising money, some of which might get to the kids, but most of which funded whatever the city wanted. Unsurprisingly, public support for the tax started to decline as Philadelphians recognized it for the naked money grab it always was. When it went into effect in January, people freaked out.

Perhaps you could say that Philadelphians made a mistake in waiting until a tax went into effect before learning about how it would affect them. Maybe an informed populace would not have let things get this far before trying to stop it. But given the ever-shifting justifications for the tax, even someone who read the newspapers fairly regularly might have been confused. That was by design. Philadelphia’s Democratic leaders wanted to pass the tax before the people found out what was in it.

In one viral tweet, Pennsylvania journalist Salena Zito showed a picture of a receipt on which a $5.99 12-pack of Propel Water was whacked with a $3.04 beverage tax. Now the people were getting the picture, and as H.L. Mencken might have said, they were getting it good and hard. But the increased prices were part of the point of a soda tax, weren’t they? Wasn’t the whole idea that Philadelphians should be “nudged” toward healthier choices in their diets? Aren’t higher prices a feature, not a bug?

Not so fast, said Kenney. According to the mayor, retailers who raised prices were “gouging their own customers.” Because the tax was levied on distributors, rather than at the point of sale, Kenney expects a previously credulous populace to believe that only those fat-cat corporations would have to pay it.

But when the price of a product doubles at one spot on the supply chain, you would have to be willfully blind not to see the cost increase would trickle down to the end user. All taxes, even corporate taxes, are ultimately taxes on the consumer. Kenney and Philadelphia Democrats knew this, even if they will no longer admit it. (emphasis added)

Are they pretending to be dumber than a box of rocks or are they really dumber than a box of rocks? Tough call.

Related: Boulder ponders how to spend upcoming soda tax money

The tax goes into effect July 1st, 2017.