Early Returns Look Good in Philadelphia’s Nation-leading Fight for a Soda Tax
I wasn’t surprised by the substantial revenues that the soda tax is bringing in, even while there is some reason to believe that soda consumption is down in the city, as we predicted it would be. For me, the soda tax has two aims–to bring in revenue and to discourage the over-consumption of soda, which contribute to diabetes and heart disease. The second aim will over five or ten years become more important as the tax plus public education teaches people consume to a lot less soda. Revenues will decline then, and our healthier city will need to replace some of them raised by the tax. But at present, it looks like revenues will be substantial to pay for the expansion of pre-K education and the community playgrounds and recreation centers for which the tax is dedicted. It will take a month or two for these new revenues to ramp… Continue reading