Posted on 05/07/2017 2:42:24 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
The mayor of Seattle has altered the rules of his proposed soda tax — which would fund education for minorities–to include diet drinks because affluent white people tend to consume them more.
Mayor Ed Murray of the staunchly liberal Seattle city originally proposed the soda tax during his state of the city address in February. Under his initial plan, distributors of sugary drinks would have to pay 2 cents per ounce.
It would cover sodas such as Coke and Pepsi, energy drinks like Red Bull, fruit drinks, sweetened teas and bottled coffees such as those sold by Starbucks.
The Mayor claimed the tax would bring $16 million in revenue that would be spent on education programs aimed at reducing disparities between the city’s white students and students of color.
But the mayor has updated the plan after the staff of the mayor’s office told him that the tax would actually disproportionately fall on poor minorities, who have higher rates of soda consumption than white residents.
Murray changed the bill, lowering the levy to 1.75 cents per ounce and included diet drinks because they are by favored by affluent white city residents, despite the fact that most diet drinks have no calories and therefore don’t contribute to obesity.
According to Reason, taxing diet drinks has become “an issue of equality” to the mayor because they more likely to be consumed by “upper middle class white people” and therefore must be taxed as a way to fight “white privileged institutionalized racism.”
The white privilege tax may be a distraction for Murray, who’s facing accusations from four men that he paid for sex and sexually abused them in the 1980s when they were teen boys. A high profile lawsuit from one of the men filed last month claims that Murray “raped and molested him” over several years, beginning in 1986 when the man was a 15-year-old high-school dropout. Murray has denied the accusations
Taxing Colt .45’s would be racist.
No kidding.
Or pineapple (which I drink gallons of)
Maybe we can wear armbands to show we identify as white.
Philadelphia has a soda tax. IIRC, distributors had to let 80-90 go from the downturn in sales.
They sure as heck don’t taste like cane sugar...
Not the problem of the feds until an injured party makes it an issue. This is a state issue. They can tax sweetened soda for “health” reasons. Taxing diet drinks because white people consume them may be another issue. Both white and black consumers of diet drinks should sue.
They will never collect $16 Million on this tax, might be lucky to get half that. Check with Philadelphia, they can tell you all about a soda tax.
Where in the Hell does this idiot claim that sugar free cokes are only bought by affluent whites, I see all kinds of people drinking sugar free sodas.
Looks like a spend-your-money-in-a-neighboring-city TAX.
Actually, affluent white people tend to drink smoothies.
This is just going to be an additional tax on People Of Color ™.
And frankly, the only disparities between white students and students of other races is that (most) white people make their kids sit down and do their homework, instead of letting them twerk in the streets.
Yeah because the affluent are really big soda drinkers.
What a fool!
We can agree to disagree
I like the idea of federalism...
The DOJ needs to get involved only for the most serious and egregious civil rights violations, not for some idiot soda tax...proposed by a pedophile mayor...
Message to Pepsi and Coke: Stop selling in Seattle. Introduce the mayor to market realities. Double your supplies in surrounding areas and let the mayor eat cake.
White privilege = racist term for Protestant Work Ethic
So stay out of Pittsburgh and Philly, and you'll do fine in PA.
His hard core, lunatic leftism has not stopped the radical left wing Nazis from trying to periodically destroy the city. I love it when the lunatic left fights the really lunatic left.
You could not pay me a million dollars a year to live in Seattle. Or Portland.
There are no ballot boxes in Seattle. It's all "mail in".
I’d move to the Poconos :)
Nice and cheap
Well, Milton Friedman famously pointed out that you tax what you want to discourage, and subsidize what you want to encourage, so I'm guessing never, while the new "coupons for queers" program can't be far off.
On the other hand, Seattle probably has liberal economists on staff, and they don't know sh!t from shinola.
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