Soda taxes aren’t just an idea that liberals like, says Quartz. The soft drink industry is facing at least 12 soda tax initiatives on ballots across the country, including in places that don’t lean nearly as far left as Berkeley, California, which passed the nation’s first soda tax in 2014. In Philadelphia, for instance, lawmakers are calling for a hefty 3-cent tax per ounce.
If the Philly initiative passes, “[i]t would destroy the industry argument once and for all that this is only happening in liberal communities,” Jim O’Hara at the Center for Science in the Public Interest told Quartz. “Philadelphia is a clearly a microcosm of America. Philly is America.”
The industry, however, is pushing back with claims that lawmakers are trying to ping Philly with a “grocery tax.”
“In Philadelphia, the beverage tax is an old idea that has already been rejected twice since 2010. This track record clearly demonstrates that Americans oppose taxes that single out one item in the grocery cart,” said Lauren Kane, spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association.
To date, soda tax proposals have been defeated 40 times nationwide since 2008. But sales have fallen in the last few years. Manufacturers are diversifying their product line with “teas, enhanced waters, juices and smoothies” to catch the sugar-conscious consumer, says Quartz. The industry is also offering sodas in mini-cans as part of a commitment to reduce the number of beverage calories consumed per person by 20 percent by 2025.
Proponents of the soda tax say all that is fine and well, but it won’t stop the anti-soda offensive. “The train has already left the station here, and whether it’s going to be taxes or warning labels or all of the above…that’s how it was with tobacco and that’s how it will be with this line of products,” said Laura Schmidt, a University of California at San Francisco researcher who has done consulting for soda tax advocates in California and in India.