In Washington (state) there was a small tax on candy and soda, even “bottled water and some processed foods,” which was rolled back by about a 2 to 1 margin Tuesday. Opponents of the tax, who claimed it would “hurt business” in the state (which is running a huge deficit, so business must be hurting already – though Bill Gates is doing fine, thank you very much), outspent the tax’s supporters by 17 to 1, spending more than $16million to beat it down. It would have raised about $100 million a year, not bad except when you consider that the budget shortfall is $4 billion.
For these kinds of taxes to be successful, they’re going to have to be bigger, not smaller, and seen not only as a novel way to raise new revenues (obviously, they’re not an easy way to raise new revenues) but as political acts designed to bring the price of junk food to a level of what it really costs us to produce and eat it. A more politically correct and perhaps more consumer-friendly way to do this would be to tax profits and let the manufacturers raise the prices, but no doubt this would “hurt business” in the state also, and not hurting business is evidently the top priority. At least if you can outspend the less business-friendly voices by 17 to 1.
(Photo Credit: Steve Hopson via Flickr)