The Consequence of the Sugar Tax

Roughly two years ago....the city leaders of Philly stood up and passed a radical new tax.....a tax on sodas (with sugar).  If you were within the city limits of Philly...you paid 1.5 cents per ounce on a sugar soft drink.  A twenty ounce container?  That mean 30 cents going to the city.  Then they turned around and said that this newly found money would go to fund roughly 6,500 seats in a kindergarten situation for city residents (not to reach 100-percent until 2023).

Well...it's been two years almost....and what can be said is an odd thing.  Most grocery stores and drink shops have seen a continual drop.  People buy their sodas outside of the city limits now. 

No one says much over the consequence of this, but if you went an extra five miles to buy bulk in sodas.....wouldn't you go and buy OTHER things in bulk while at this non-city-tax establishment? 

I noticed this brought up this week and discussed to some degree. 

The city has a problem in that they chased people away from town and gave them a reason to shop in non-city-tax establishments.  To meet this goal of the 6,500 seats in the child-promise deal?  Well....yeah, there's a Philly discussion going on....of raising more taxes....in order to reach the goal of the first tax (the sugar tax). 

Why not admit failure and just dump the 6,500 seat idea?  The political folks just can't bring themselves to admit that they really screwed up. 

You can sit and do the math.  If you had a couple of members in the family, and regularly drunk 4,000 ounces of soda a year (a hefty amount, I admit) then your debt to the city would be around $60 a year.  You could drive one single time out beyond the city ($2 of extra gas) and pocket the $58 into your pocket by buying bulk.  In fact, you could find in the entire city.....ten thousand families doing this and pocketing $600,000 a year.