Seattle Mayor Proposes Diet Soda Tax To Tackle White Privilege

The mayor of Seattle, Ed Murray, has decided to alter the rules of his previously proposed soda tax. Now, the tax would fund education for minorities and would include diet soda drinks because affluent white people tend to consume them more.

White privilege – the battle cry of leftists – even Seattle’s mayor. The city’s mayor originally proposed the soda tax during his state of the city address in February. Under his initial plan, distributors of sugary drinks, such as sodas, would have to pay 2 cents per ounce in additional taxes. This tax would apply to Coke, Pepsi, fruit drinks, sweetened teas, bottled coffees such as those sold by Starbucks, and Red Bull products. The mayor updated his plan after the staff of his office told him that the tax would actually disproportionately fall on poor minorities, who have higher rates of soda consumption than white residents. He’s now agreed to lower the tax from 2 cents per ounce to 1.75 cents per ounce because – social justice.

The Mayor claims the tax would bring $16 million in revenue to the city. That money would be spent on” education programs aimed at reducing disparities between the city’s white students and students of color.” Apparently, nothing says “I have white privilege” quite like drinking a diet Coke, according to Murray.  It’s almost like there should be an invention that one could use to get any information they want at any time on any ingredient in any product, so extra unnecessary education expenses could be avoided. Like the internet perhaps. There are plenty of studies showing aspartame, the artificial sweeter in many diet soda drinks, is not the best for one’s health. But as long as the tax is to curb white privilege, the mayor is all for it.

The city council is expected to consider the proposal sometime in June if it doesn’t fail under its own weight of progressive rhetoric. Reason reported that Murray is determined to silence local critics who have suggested he isn’t America’s most progressive mayor. He has now packed so much conflicted social justice into a simple soda tax that no one in the Emerald City is quite sure what to make of it. Originally, taxes on drinks of this type were instituted in other cities to discourage consumption, not in the name of a fabricated social justice issue. While taxes of this kind rarely do anything other than inhibit the economy, Seattle’s mayor is determined to leave his mark on the city.

Philadelphia’s soda tax—which went into effect in January—has seen price hikes of 30 to 50 percent along with job losses in the beverage industry. Philly.com has reported that one of the city’s largest drink distributors said it will cut 20 percent of its workforce, while an owner of several ShopRite stores said he will cut some 300 jobs. –Reason

This sort of a tax has always created a ripple effect in the economy, and yet, Murray thinks he should go forward for the sake of battling white privilege. Once he was able to turn it into a social justice issue, he has likely made it easier for Seattle’s population to swallow.

But this white privilege tax could all be smoke in mirrors. Murray is facing accusations from four men. They allege 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, but perhaps he wishes this would go away, so he’s attempting to go into full social justice warrior mode to make up for it.