Nutter's Soda Tax Needs To Fizzle Out

You have to give credit where it’s due. 

Thanks to Mayor Nutter, folks have laughed more over the last two weeks than at any time in recent memory.  If laughing is good for the soul, Philadelphians are in great shape.

What was so funny?

Watching Nutter keep a straight face while proposing another ten percent hike in property taxes (which would be in addition to last year’s “temporary” ten percent increase and the 100 percent increase in the city portion of the state sales tax), higher parking fees, and yes, the resurrected sugary drink “soda” tax, which would  impose a two-cent per ounce tax on sugary drinks.

But Philadelphians’ collective rage at the Mayor’s ideas was downright priceless.

If it wasn’t so funny, it would be pathetic.

*****

The fact that there is any outrage or surprise is inexplicable. What did these people expect? 

“These people” being  the 80 percent who just voted for Nutter in last month’s primary election.

No, that’s not a typo.  A whopping eight of ten Philadelphia voters ushered Nutter back into the Mayor’s office (a done deal, since he cannot lose in November), welcoming him back for a second term with open arms.  

To those folks, a suggestion: stop doing drugs.  They make you hallucinate.

What part of The Nut’s sham did you buy?  That he would make the city’s business climate better so that it could attract more companies, thus creating more jobs?  Freindly Fire is no economist, but it knows that when you want less of something, you tax it.  That’s fact, not opinion.  So based on the crushing levies being proposed, how exactly the Mayor plans to incentivize companies to stay in the city, much less locate here, remains a mystery

.

But how could anyone oppose the soda tax, since its objective is to combat obesity? Oh wait, that was last year’s pitch, which was so disingenuous that the proposal landed in the drink.

This time, the Mayor is taking a different tack, presciently pointing out that no businesses --- even the beverage retailers --- will really be harmed by the tax.

"These are individual business people who will make individual business decisions," Nutter said.

Of course, the Mayor failed to explain how paying a mandated soda tax --- a certifiable job-killer --- would be an “individual business decision,”  since failure to comply would unleash the city’s Gestapo Tax Squad.

When asked if businesses would leave the city, he stated, "No, that's laughable. I mean, that's just a cruel joke… they're trying to scare people with these tactics."

Spoken like a career politician who has never held a private-sector job in his life, and has absolutely no clue how devastating the soda tax would be on the city’s businesses.

Here’s what the Mayor doesn’t want you to know: a soda tax, while a burden to all, would be especially harmful to the poor, who can least afford another tax. Remember, these people are already living in what is, cumulatively, one of the highest taxed cities in the nation.

More important, there’s no such thing as a “tax on soda.”  It’s a tax on people. Period.

Which is why the Mayor is dancing the Philadelphia Two-Step, doing everything in his power to distract the voters and avoid the real issues --- such as taxpayer money going into the city’s coffers every time someone drinks a cold soda on a hot summer day.

Mayor Nutter incorrectly believes that government and “government money” creates jobs and wealth, when in reality, the exact opposite is true. 

Government creates nothing, nor should it.  Rather, it’s free people in a competitive environment who are the engine of a thriving democratic society.   Government should be there to serve the people, not the other way around.  Nowhere is that more apparent than in once-great cities like Philadelphia, where the economic lights are on their last flicker.

Math doesn’t lie.  Two plus two will always equal four --- whether one chooses to admit that or not.  Out-of-touch politicians like Michael Nutter can promise an empty bill of goods to our citizens. But just because he chooses not to acknowledge the real problems doesn’t mean they’re not there.

*****

The ball is now in City Council’s hands.  They have the sole power to approve or reject the Nutter tax proposals.  While conventional wisdom says the votes aren’t there for passage, nothing is certain, especially with so many retiring Council members with “nothing to lose” if they anger the voters.

Sure, the city is facing fiscal problems, but breaking the backs of citizens to fix problems not of their making is simply wrong.  Retiring or not, what politician really wants his or her only legacy to be a tax-raiser who presided over a violent, insolvent city with vastly deteriorated city services? 

It is rare that a City Council vote holds so much importance.  In this instance, the significance is  not just whether a sugary drink tax is passed or defeated, but the message behind that vote:  

Will Philadelphia continue its decline by engaging in more of the same failed policies? 

Or will it finally turn the corner, firmly stating that it will no longer look to the state and federal governments for bailouts which only serve to pass the buck on accountability? And that, instead, it will pull itself up by its own bootstraps, embracing the spirit of its citizens rather than crushing it?

*****

Here’s the truth. Residents are leaving Philadelphia in droves--- some to make purchases across county or state lines to avoid city taxes, and hundreds of thousands who are just leaving altogether.

If Philadelphia is to ever put the brakes on this exodus, and begin the long road back to respectability, it is mandatory for City Council to step up and resoundingly reject the Mayor’s sugary drink tax proposal. 

Anything else will just be “sugar” coating a tragic situation --- forcing residents to pour a drink much stronger than soda.

City Council, your fifteen minutes are upon you.

Chris Friend is an independent columnist, television commentator, and investigativereporter who operates his own news bureau, www.FreindlyFireZone.com

Readers of his column, “Freindly Fire,” hail from six continents, thirty countries

and all fifty states. His work has been referenced in numerous publications including

The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, foreign newspapers, and in Dick

Morris' recent bestseller "Catastrophe."

Freind, whose column appears regularly in Philadelphia Magazine and nationally in

Newsmax, also serves as a frequent guest commentator on talk radio and state/national

television, most notably on FOX Philadelphia.  He can be reached at CF@FreindlyFireZone.com

Newsflash To Nutter: No One Cares About Philly’s Problems

In 1979, Chicago Mayor Michael Bilandic didn't effectively plow the streets after a snowstorm --- and as a direct result, he lost his primary election several months later. After similar snowstorms in Philadelphia this past winter, the streets were in deplorable shape --- and that’s being generous.

The result? Almost 80% of voters just told Mayor Nutter "job well done" in last month’s primary.

That's the difference. Chicago is "the town that works." Philadelphia is completely dysfunctional.

Apathy gets you what you deserve. That passive neglect by city residents has led to Philly’s very deserved reputation as a city of colossal failure, with virtually no promise of a renaissance-like turnaround.  And the numbers bear that out. 

A recent study by the Pew Charitable Trust says it all: those who have the means to leave the city do so --- as evidenced by 263,000 white residents (one-third of that population) who fled over the last 20 years.  Those who can’t flee get further crushed by an abusive and incompetent government.

Since voters keep sending leaders like Mayor Michael Nutter back to City Hall by overwhelming margins, the rest of the state --- particularly non-city state legislators --- have increasingly been sending a message to Philadelphia: “We don’t care about your problems any more. You’ve made your bed --- now lie in it.”

It’s about time.

                                                             *****

Up until the 50’s, Philadelphia was the last major city to be run by Republicans.  The GOP had become wildly corrupt, and eventually lost power to the Democrats reformers, who have been calling the shots ever since.

The transformation can be summed up this way: Philadelphia went from competent but corrupt Republicans, to incompetent and corrupt Democrats, to what we have today: just incompetent Democrats.

Sure, there is still corruption, but, to be fair, Nutter seems to be cleaner than some of his predecessors.
That’s simply not good enough.  Truth be told, it’s probably a safe bet that the majority of residents would rather have corruption and competence than just plain incompetence.

                                                                        *****
Nothing works in the city.  Services are poor and unpredictable, despite the staggering costs that residents and businesses pay for them.  Opening a business is fraught with bureaucracy, red tape, and, many privately say, extortion--- both “legal” and otherwise.

The education system not only is in the hole $600 million, despite 70,000 vacancies in the School District’s capacity, but violence is commonplace, making it a deathtrap for many students.  Year after year, its “product” is so bad that a huge number drop out of school, and the rest have virtually no skills to perform even the most menial jobs after graduation.  Only about one-third of its 11th graders are proficient in math, and slightly more than 40 percent proficient in reading, according to standardized tests.  Yet those dismal figures were “earned” despite massive educational spending and smaller class size.  The truth is, the percentages are significantly lower, since the dropouts are not included in the scores.

The pension is catastrophically underfunded, so much that the Nutter has deferred payments for two years, promising to make it up by stroking a check --- after his reelection --- for $800 million.  There is simply no money for that, so, sooner than later, it is a mathematical certainty that pensioners will begin to receive reduced payments, and, possibly, no payments at all.

Crime is still rampant, yet the Mayor acceded to the Police Commissioner’s implied threat to leave, giving him a $60,000 raise --- making him the highest-paid employee in the city.

But rather than embark on a course that would clean up the city and reduce the tax and regulatory burden so that businesses and families would actually want to locate in Philadelphia --- thus increasing tax revenue --- the Mayor and City Council have done what they always do: put the screws to the residents who can’t afford to vote with their feet.

Philadelphia is, cumulatively, one of the highest-taxed cities in the nation.  From the job-killing wage tax to the 100 percent increase in the city portion of the state sales tax, and from the (“temporary”) ten percent hike in property taxes to the business gross receipts tax, taking more of the residents’ money is the only solution known to Philadelphia’s leaders.

And yet, it’s still not enough.  So Nutter has gone back to the tax well yet again, this time resurrecting his soda tax proposal and pushing for big fee increases in parking rates. Oh, and he’s lobbying for another ten percent property tax increase.  Remember, that would be in addition to the ten percent increase passed last year.

Good move.  That’s sure to bring in new businesses. 

Mayor Nutter’s governing strategy is predicated upon only one thing: handouts from the federal and state government. In fact, he admitted that the city would have been unable to pay its bills last year without federal stimulus dollars.

Up until now, his feeding at the public trough has paid off, as the state always came to the rescue with big bucks.  But the game has changed, as neither the state nor the feds have any money left to give. And now that those welfare checks to the city have dried up, the Mayor doesn’t have a clue how to govern.

This should come as no surprise, though, as he has virtually no experience in the private sector.  How often has he ever had to meet a payroll, or navigate the bureaucratic minefield when trying to open or expand a business? When was the last time he stayed up at night, worrying about covering his employees’ health care costs? And has he ever had to look someone in the face while handing him a pink slip --- because the city tax burden was simply too great to keep that valued employee on board?

Career politicians who sit in their ivory towers, insulated from reality, govern from the only “experience” they know: academic theory. And as the exodus of Philadelphians shows, that simply doesn’t cut it.

Philadelphia doesn’t have the luxury of being Washington or New York, where being downtown is a necessity.  Very few businesses have to be in the city, so the margin of error for Philly’s leaders is extremely small. And for those empty nesters and white-collar types who enjoy living in Center City, they are one mugging away from packing it up and moving back to the suburbs.

The lesson is simple: a government that overreaches yet remains incompetent results in a vastly reduced tax base --- which in turn leads to a death spiral.  It’s a concept any high schooler could grasp, but tragically, is completely lost on this deer-in-the-headlights Mayor.

After years of misguided policies, there are no easy answers, but the future is easy to predict because there is absolutely no political will to affect real change.  Contrary to the fairy-tale fluff spewed forth at nauseating press conferences, nothing will improve, more folks will leave, Philadelphia will continue its sad decline --- and the Mayor will retire on an enviably-large pension.

Perhaps only then will he finally reap the whirlwind of his disastrous policies --- when his own pension check bounces. 

What a legacy.

Chris Freind is an independent columnist, television commentator, and investigative
reporter who operates his own news bureau, www.FreindlyFireZone.com

Readers of his column, “Freindly Fire,” hail from six continents, thirty countries
and all fifty states. His work has been referenced in numerous publications including
The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, foreign newspapers, and in Dick
Morris' recent bestseller "Catastrophe."

Freind, whose column appears regularly in Philadelphia Magazine and nationally in
Newsmax, also serves as a frequent guest commentator on talk radio and state/national
television, most notably on FOX Philadelphia.  He can be reached at CF@FreindlyFireZone.com