The Moral Case for Why We Must Repeal Philadelphia’s Soda Tax
It’s a stark embodiment of the city’s divide — on one side the privileged who reap its benefits without ever touching a sugary drink, and on the other the impoverished and people of color who fund those benefits.
“The Philadelphia beverage tax — I know it has people angry about it, but it’s like Obamacare,” Mayor Jim Kenney told a crowd of Black journalists while answering a question about funding universal pre-K and recreation centers during a Q&A session last week. “I can’t pay for it without the revenue.”
The Affordable Care Act, more popularly known as Obamacare, resembles Philadelphia’s soda tax in exactly one way: It is a landmark policy championed by a first-term Democratic administration. And here’s just one way it differs: Other Democrats aren’t out there trying to take it down.