Big Soda's crude Big Lie on Proposition V

Even by corporate standards, the industry's ads against Proposition V, the soda tax on the city's November ballot, are crude. 

The Big Lie is that it's a "grocery tax," though clearly it's only about "sugar-sweetened beverages," not groceries in general. 

The issue was on the ballot in 2014, and it was approved by 56% of city voters, but it needed a 2/3 vote since the money raised under Proposition E was tagged to pay for specific purposes. Money raised from Proposition V avoids that hurdle, since it will go into the general fund. (The legal text of Prop. V)

"Progressive" Bernie Sanders opposed the soda tax on Philadelphia's ballot just before the June primary, apparently hoping it would help him against Hillary with the African American vote. It didn't.

Supervisor Cohen admits that the tax will impact poor people the most:

“Many people have called this a regressive tax and will continue to do so,” Cohen said. “By regressive, I mean that it impacts poor communities and to be honest it does. This tax definitely affects those folks at the bottom.” She added, “But I am also here to say that regressive diseases like Type 2 diabetes also disproportionately affect people at the bottom.”

The Berkeley soda tax is apparently working as hoped.