Will Other Cities Mimic Philadelphia’s Terrible Soda Tax? New at Reason

Earlier this month, Philadelphia adopted a penny-and-a-half-per-ounce soda tax. The revenue from the tax will be used in large part to expand pre-kindergarten opportunities—a potentially dubious pursuit. A critic might note that spending tens of millions of dollars to expand pre-K in a city where even the most optimistic reports show city schools already fail to educate children and are routinely broke may not be the best idea.

Philadelphia’s soda tax isn’t the nation’s first—that dishonor belongs to Berkeley—and it likely won’t be the last. That’s because such taxes, once touted as an evidence-free way to reduce obesity, are now seen by cash-strapped cities as a fix-all for their often self-imposed budgetary woes. Baylen Linnekin offers critiques of a poorly thought out tax model.

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