The unintended consequences of the nanny state.
Boston’s City Council is weighing a tax on sugary drinks to improve health, advance equity, and increase its coffers by tens of millions of dollars a year. Such progressive policies seek revenue in the name of rescue but inevitably inflict more significant inequities on the marginalized communities they purport to serve. A sugar tax is a regressive sin tax on the victims instead of the true sinners.
Monkey See, Monkey Do?
Councilor Sharon Durkan introduced Boston’s recent proposal, pointing to similar programs in five other large, notably progressive cities. Claiming “a 1% or 2% per-ounce tax on SSBs [sugar-sweetened beverages] could prevent more than 6,000 cases of obesity, reduce diabetes by 9%, and save more than $90 million in healthcare costs over the first decade of…
