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Seattle Mayor Ed Murray uses state-of-the-city speech to propose a two-cents per ounce tax on sugar sweetened beverages..
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray uses state-of-the-city speech to propose a two-cents per ounce tax on sugar sweetened beverages..
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray is bucking up against Big Soda.
The mayor, in his state-of-the-city speech, on Tuesday proposed a two-cents per ounce tax on sugar sweetened beverages, with $16 million a year in anticipated revenues going largely to birth-through-age 5 education programs.
The tax call by Murray comes after Cook County, Ill., Boulder, Colorado and a trio of California cities — San Francisco, Oakland and Albany — voted in November to tax sugary beverages. Philadelphia, in 2015, became the largest city to enact a soda tax.
Murray is proposing a higher tax than paid in other cities and localities.
Cook County and the three California cities voted for a penny-per ounce tax, while Philadelphia taxes sugar-sweetened beverages at a rate of 1.5 cents per ounce. Only Boulder, home of the University of Colorado, has a two-cent tax.
Noting victories in Boulder, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Oakland, Murray argued: “This is the right way for Seattle to do the same and fund programs important to the health and success of so many of our underserved students of color.”
The call for a steep tax puts Murray at odds with the powerful American Beverage Assn, a lobby often nicknamed Big Soda.
Such a tax, assuming it covers sugary coffee drinks, might arouse other opposition.
The Washington Legislature in 2010, at the height of the Great Recession, enacted a small temporary tax on soft drinks, candy, gum and bottled water. The American Beverage Assn. spent $16.5 million on an “astroturf” citizen ballot measure, Initiative 1107, and succeeded in rolling back the tax.
The taxing of sugary beverages has reached from America across The Pond. Mexico has such a tax, which has cut into sales of some soft drinks, and France, Hungary, Ireland and the United Kingdom have done likewise.
In response, Coca Cola and Pepsico have stepped up marketing efforts in India, China and countries of Southeast Asia.
Ed Murray is a taxing mayor. Already on his watch, Seattle voters have been persuaded to double the Families and Education Levy, the Seattle Housing Levy, and to enact the gargantuan $930 million Move Seattle transportation levy. It replaced the $351 million Bridging the Gap Levy of 2006.
The city has voted money for a startup preschool program, and provided the votes last November to pass the $54 billion Sound Transit 3 tax package.
Soaring car tab bills, arriving in mailboxes, signal the money motorists must put up to support the so-called transportation-industrial complex — Sound Transit, its contractors, engineering firms, construction unions and political consultants.
The generosity of Emerald City has caused its political class to go to the well — often.
There has been little protest even in the face of a fiasco — the city’s purchase of the Pronto bike share program — and the endless congestion-causing, business hurting Seattle Department of Transportation rebuild of 23rd Avenue through the Central Area.
By contrast, the Housing Levy as well as Families and Education have won accolades, and preschool may be the most important program ever for addressing the city’s education and economic inequities.
Mayor Murray is dreaming big dreams, and bigger government to fulfill those dreams. He announced Tuesday a “comprehensive vision” and action plan.
“This action plan knits together and grows the City’s continuum of education support, from early child development to K-12 to higher education, Murray said.
“It includes annual investments in birth-to-five programs, before- and after-school opportunities, family engagement, addressing disproportionality in discipline, summer learning, school-based mentoring and college and career readiness..
He has enlisted a bevy of local foundations, including the Gates Foundation, as well as the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce.
The soda tax is likely not to be the last “ask” in meeting the mayor’s big drams.
“While these steps represent a significant addition of new resources, they are but a down payment toward our goal of closing racial disparities in education outcomes, which will require future investments,” said Murray.
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