Seattle soda tax shows how liberalism works: Most of money set aside for poor goes to overead and hiring more staff

Blogger in Seattle

Cook County, Illinois, where I live, dropped a nearly-unanimously unpopular one-cent-per ounce sugary-drinks after only a few months.

As I've written many, many times, sin taxes almost always fall short of revenue forecasts. Buyers either shop in lower-tax jurisdictions or they consume less of the sinful goods. This will be the case in Seattle too.

Anyway, Daniel Beekman of the left-wing Seattle Times explains that the Emerald City's 1.75-cent-per-ounce soda tax is expected to collect $15 million in its first year. It won't. I guarantee it. Beekman dutifully points the plunge in soda sales after Philadelphia added its soda tax, but of course leaves out the Cook County repeal.

That's one of the tactics of leftist journalists--the sin of omission.

Some of that money, however much it will be, is supposed to go to a nutritious food voucher program called Fresh Bucks, $2 million. Beekman does expose dishonesty within the planned soda tax expenditures for Fresh Bucks.

From Beekman's article:

Fresh Bucks is one of several nutrition and education programs slated to receive funding from the tax.

But not every dollar will reach Seattle families. Only $400,000 of the tax revenue set aside for Fresh Bucks in 2018 will be spent on produce vouchers.

The rest of the $2 million for Fresh Bucks is aimed at administrative costs, such as outreach, technology and hiring five additional city employees to carry out the program’s expansion.

Ya got that? Most of Fresh Bucks money--75 percent of it--won't go to the families who need it but for overhead and more city workers. Taxes are being used by government to expand government--feeding the beast.

Niles, Illinois last summer

And unlike the Crook County sweetened beverage tax, the Seattle version won't include diet sodas. So count on it--plenty of Seattleites will drop their love for sugar and guzzle diet drinks, saving $2.52 on a twelve-pack.

Liberals don't understand human nature, particularly when it comes to economics.