As NPR’s Allison Aubrey has reported, “One of the mayor’s selling points in persuading the City Council to support the measure is that much of the estimated $91 million the tax would bring to the city’s coffers each year would boost funding for programs including citywide pre-K education”. In fact, the tax of one-and-a-half cents per ounce could perversely encourage consumption of more calories, especially since it does not apply to juice products loaded with naturally occurring sugar. Sugary drink taxes are already up for consideration on the ballot in Boulder, CO, and San Francisco, Oakland, and Albany, CA.
Advertisement
By pushing the tax through the council rather than a referendum, and by framing the tax as a public goods provider instead of an admonishment, Kenney has provided a model that could be emulated across the country to help pass soda taxes. The trade group spent almost $5 million on ads trying to defeat the measure that was passed 13-to-4 by the city council. Of that amount, $314 million would go to programs such as expanding pre-kindergarten and renovating recreation centers and libraries. The group has said Philadelphia’s passage of the tax resulted from local political conditions and was unlikely to have a ripple effect in other cities.
The move comes as the beverage industry, led by leader Atlanta-based Coca-Cola, is struggling with falling soda sales as consumers switch to teas, waters and energy drinks. He and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health published a 10-year estimate of the health impacts of a 1-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks in Philadelphia.
“It is our responsibility to do everything we can to inform our community about the true health risks of sugar-sweetened beverages”, she said in the statement. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Tom Frieden advocated for such a tax when he was health commissioner for New York City, saying research showed it could reduce sugar intake. The ABA has argued that the tax will disproportionately affect the poor and force the beverage industry to eliminate jobs.
More cities could follow, using Philadelphia’s tax as leverage and momentum.
“I feel that we’ve demonstrated that (a soda tax) is doable”. “It was used in NY and it was not effective”, said Kenney, adding that while the health benefits of a tax are not “less important”, they are less tangible.
Advertisement
“This is a generational problem”, Mr. Kenney said. A spokeswoman said complex state laws on taxation made enacting a citywide soda tax the best option to raise revenue for that signature proposal. Until now, the only city to successfully pass and implement a soda tax was Berkeley, California (1 cent per ounce) in 2014.
