Democrat U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman is on video endorsing a regressive soda tax, calling the tax “brilliant.”
Fetterman tried to claim the soda tax is not regressive, but even his mentor Bernie Sanders said: “The mechanism here is fairly regressive. And that is, it will be increasing taxes on low income and working people.”
Sanders also said: “That’s a regressive way to raise funds.”
Fetterman even wrote an op-ed in support of the tax which reveals his nanny-state approach to governing. He has no problem imposing new taxes and government costs onto working households.
In the op-ed Fetterman actually claims the soda tax isn’t regressive because low income people will no longer be able to afford soda.
The Philadelphia soda tax endorsed by Fetterman imposes a $2.16 tax on a 12-pack. A two-liter bottle of soda is hit with a $1.01 tax, a price hike of 47%.
As noted by ATR’s Patrick Gleason, writing in Forbes:
Unfortunately for Fetterman, the reason soda taxes are called regressive by Sanders and others is because such excise taxes fit the literal definition of regressive, in that they force low- and middle-income households to part with a greater share of their income in order to pay the tax. Fetterman argues that the soda tax is not really regressive because those from limited means will simply stop drinking soda rather than pay the tax.
“You don’t have to have a Ph.D. to understand that if the price of a non-essential product goes up, those with limited income are most likely to avoid it,” Fetterman wrote. “The soda tax can’t be a tax on the poor if the poor aren’t buying soda.”
According to Fetterman’s logic, a punitive tax is not regressive so long as the rate is set so high that low income households can no longer afford the product on which the tax is imposed. If a legislature raised the state gas tax rate so high that low income households could no longer afford to buy gas, that wouldn’t mean the gas tax isn’t regressive. It would mean such a prohibitively high gas tax is extremely regressive, so much so that low income households can no longer even afford to fill up their tanks. The same goes for a soda tax.
Fetterman’s endorsement of a soda tax can be viewed below: