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posted at 4:01 pm on April 19, 2017 by Jazz Shaw

This entire process certainly didnt start with Michael Bloomberg, but he definitely made it famous. The subject at hand is the increasing popularity of soda taxes (or more broadly, sugary drink taxes) as the latest sin tax of choice among liberals. Its been attempted in various places, but one of the more recent ones was enacted in 2015 in the liberal bastion of Berkeley, California. Since going into effect there have definitely been some impacts on the local economy and this piece from Time Magazine attempts to pick out some sweet spots in the data (if youll pardon the pun) as proof that the system is working. Lets see what they came up with.

The researchers looked at whether the tax impacted the buying behaviors of Berkeley residents. They found that one year after the tax took effect, sales of sugar-sweetened drinks fell by close to 10%, and sales of water increased in Berkeley by about 16%. Sales of unsweetened teas, milk and fruit juices also went up, suggesting people were substituting their sugary drinks with healthier alternatives

The findings suggest that even in higher-income communities, a soda tax can impact sales. Popkin predicts that the drops would be even greater in cities and counties with lower-income communities. In Mexico, which passed a similar tax that took effect in 2014, there have been significant declines in the consumption of sugary beverages. Among low-income residents, it dropped by 17% early on.

So since the tax was enacted, sales of all sugar sweetened drinks fell by 10% in the area where the tax was collected. I suppose if we bring the conversation to a dead stop right there you might be led to believe that the effort was effective, eh? But as with so many other metrics in society, the raw numbers dont speak to a host of other factors. Heres one thought Berkeley is a very liberal spot with lots of vegans and other health conscious lifestyle types of folks. Do you suppose that people were just looking for healthier options anyway? The study doesnt tell us if this was a sudden reversal or part of a longer trend.

Heres another factor to consider. When you drive up the price of any goods or services, its true that some people will choose not to spend their money in that fashion. But others may seek a cheaper option. Heres where the report goes completely off the tracks. (Emphasis added)

Another interesting finding in the study was that sales of sugar-sweetened beverages in neighboring cities rose nearly 7%possibly because people may be buying their soda where its cheaper. Yet Popkin says hes skeptical that the number of people in Berkeley would be great enough to increase the rates of other cities substantially, and believes that the higher rates could be partially unrelated.

So you were willing to flatly accept a 10% drop as being attributable to the tax, but youre skeptical that the 7% rise next door could be caused by people buying in bulk where the product is cheaper? Yeah that makes total sense.

Far more likely is that the real drivers for these changers are, to some significant degree, attributable to normal market forces. When you drive up the cost of something people look for other options. That happened in Philadelphia where the city government decided to save the people from themselves with a similar soda tax. The net result seemed to be angry consumers, more people shopping in the nearby county without the tax and, just by the way, the local Pepsi plant laying off a bunch of their workers. Brilliant!

None of this, of course, addresses the underlying problem with this approach. Since when is it the governments job to engage in social engineering experiments using the power of taxation as a cudgel to wield against the citizens? If you honestly believe that soda is a dangerous product unfit for human consumption, then ban it. If the people support your efforts you will be reelected. But if its good enough to be legally sold, then dont pretend youre trying to make people healthier by letting them drink something that you are saying is borderline toxic while actually just filling the city governments coffers with their grocery money. Thats both dishonest and insulting.

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Liberals attempt to point to success of soda tax in Berkeley - Hot Air

Globalnews.ca

B.C. Liberals take aim at NDP economics Globalnews.ca VANCOUVER Christy Clark's Liberals are ramping up attacks on the NDP's ability to manage British Columbia's economy, accusing the party of releasing a platform that will cost billions with no way to pay for it. The New Democrats' platform includes ... The politics of the BC Liberal 'troll' truckCBC.ca Latest poll shows Greens taking votes from Liberals, NDPVancouver Sun BC Liberals, NDP spar over Site C damThe Globe and Mail The Province all 102 news articles »

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B.C. Liberals take aim at NDP economics - Globalnews.ca

Andrew Steele is vice-president at StrategyCorp, Canadas integrated public affairs, communications and management consultancy. He served as senior adviser to Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty

Despite a 14-year run in office, the Ontario Liberals havent had much swagger of late. But that may change. As the government turns the corner on a balanced budget, Ontarians are about to see the government shift into an explicitly small-l liberal groove for the first time in almost a decade.

Cast your mind back. During the Great Recession, Ontarios balanced budgets of 2006 and 2007 gave way to $20-billion-a-year deficits in 2008 and 2009. While the public was hardly clamouring for fiscal discipline in the era of GMs bankruptcy, premier Dalton McGuinty nevertheless made a promise to balance by the year 2017.

The province has since held by that pledge, even after the Liberals chose a new premier, Kathleen Wynne. But fiscal discipline is no longer a key vote driver with the Liberal coalition. While in the mid-00s balanced budgets were the necessary precondition to be seen as competent managers, public opinion subsequently shifted. Today, deficits are no longer anathema.

In fact, the belt-tightening required to balance the budget may have been a large factor in Ms. Wynnes poor postelection polling. Voters elected Kathleen Wynne as a progressive breath of fresh air who would build Ontario up with public spending. Those voters felt a lunch-bag letdown when her first three years with a majority government were spent doing not-so-Liberal things such as managing down labour-cost pressures and selling Hydro One.

With a balanced budget now in the works, the Liberal Premier appears likely to begin governing unbound. Ms. Wynne is now in a position to undertake a much more aggressive agenda in line with the deficits and infrastructure spending of the popular Trudeau Liberals. While that approach will find no friends with National Post editorial writers and Bay Street, it is likely to prove more popular than the austerity of the past decade.

This Great Shift Left will see the end of 10 years of austerity and incrementalism in pursuit of a refashioning of the social compact to help Ontarians prosper in the face of globalized disruption. It is fuelled by the fastest growth in the country in 2017, growth that is expanding the fiscal capacity of the province at the exact time there is renewed permission for spending.

The Ontario government signalled its intention to move to the left over past weeks. Already they have announced:

What is waiting in the wings is even more dramatic:

Shifting left is a smart political strategy for the struggling Liberals.

The NDP has been siphoning left-leaning voters from the Grits on the back of fiscally driven decisions such as the Hydro One privatization and battles with public-sector unions to control costs. Moving left could help the Liberals win back many of these progressive voters.

But the primary threat to the Liberals remains the Conservatives. Since winning the leadership as the darling of social conservatives, Patrick Brown has been removing the Mike Harris-era rough edges off the PC Party. His efforts sparked a backlash among party grassroots with a pledge to implement a carbon tax. All of this is in an effort to remove policy differences between the PCs and Liberals so the next election is fought on time for a change and not over the PCs policy positions.

Shifting left will open up room between the PCs and Liberals, likely too far for the already internally assailed Brown to follow. That will give the Liberals the ability to fight the election on policy, polarize the vote between themselves and the PCs, minimize the NDP vote and make the election a choice instead of a referendum on themselves.

No government looks good measured against perfection. But by shifting left, the Liberals hope they will be measured against Patrick Brown, a more appetizing prospect.

Follow us on Twitter: @GlobeDebate

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Ontario's Liberals take a big step to the left - The Globe and Mail

OTTAWA A new federal agency designed to fuse public and private dollars to help build infrastructure in Canada could end up building new roads and bridges south of the border so long as they connect to the Great White North.

The legislation for the Liberals' proposedinfrastructure bank would allow the arm's-length organization to use public money to help bankroll or financially backstop projects that are "in Canada or partly in Canada."

The key for the government is that there has to be a financial benefit and a physical connection to the country, meaning Canadian dollars won't be building any infrastructure solely in the United States or anywhere overseas, andsuggesting that the government is interested in funding projects like transmission lines and bridges that cross the border and have a revenue stream attached to them.

U.S. President Donald Trump's transition teammusedabout setting up an American infrastructure bankthat would use various financing toolsto lure private dollars towards the construction ofpublic assets like new transit and transportation networks and the issue remains a topic of discussion in American political and academic circles.

Minister of Infrastructure and Communities Amarjeet Sohi. (Photo: The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohimet high-level American officials on two separate visits to Washington, D.C., along with top officials at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, all of themkeenly interested in how the Canadian bank will operate once it officially launches.

So tooare observers and investors in Canada, many of whom still havequestions about the bank's operations and whether the legislation as worded could put up roadblocks to the bank's success.

At the heart of the concerns is one of independence from political interference: Giving the government too much control over the bank's operations could end up scaring off investors who don't want short-term political opportunism meddling in long-term infrastructure projects. On the flip side, not enough political oversight could scare off cities and provinces who would be the ones to bring projects forward.

"We believe that the legislation to create the CIB strikes the right balance between creating an arms-length Crown corporation that would attract private capital to build more infrastructure across Canada and would ensure the agency is accountable to Parliament in its management of public funds," said Brook Simpson, a spokesman for Sohi.

The Liberals are infusing the bank with $35 billion in government funding, hoping that the money can leverage three or four times that much in private dollars to build infrastructure in Canada.

Last year, Finance Minister Bill Morneau's council of economic advisers envisioned a very specific decision-making process that would only allow government to step inif a project didn't have a revenue stream attached to it, wasn't in line with the government's growth strategy, or didn't have a private backer.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau. (Photo: Reuters/Chris Wattie)

The overarching idea was to make the bank independent, so that it would be viewed as credible by capital markets and signal stability to private investors.

Private pension funds have pushed for months for the Liberals to make the new bank independent from government intervention. Now that the legislation is out, some are privately expressing concerns while others are taking a wait-and-see approach, knowing that more details about the bank's operations will come from a corporate plan set to be released later this year.

Government officials have been telling investors that the plan for the bank would be for the government to approve a project when it is submitted to the bank for review, meaning cabinet couldn't cancel a project later on in the process. Nor would there be any restrictions on where private backing could come from, easing concerns from some corners that only blocking foreign funds could see retaliation against domestic funds that invest overseas.

Benjamin Dachis, associate director of research at the C.D. Howe Institute, says investors could be scared away fromworking with the bank if they don't feel that there are strong firewalls to prevent political meddling in long-term projects.

"Private investors will be very skittish if they know that any individual decision is going to be subject to right until the actual project is completed that any infrastructure can just be scuttled by the government of the day," Dachis said.

"This legislation needs to strike that balance between democratic oversight, but institutional independence to make sure that projects that go ahead are the right ones and not just politically attractive ones in the short term."

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Liberals' Infrastructure Program Could Pay For Projects In U.S. - Huffington Post Canada

New York Times

After Georgia's Close Race, Montana Democrats Demand Party's Attention New York Times But grass-roots liberals are not about to let party leaders lapse back into traditional red state, blue state assumptions. Instead, the Democrats' enthusiastic base is demanding to compete on terrain that once seemed forbidding, a formula for disputes ... Georgia race is national therapy session for liberalsNewsday Trump Bashes Georgia Dem as Liberals Spend Big to Flip Tom Price's SeatFox Business Liberals fume at Democratic establishment as timid about TrumpThe Providence Journal Washington Free Beacon -NBCNews.com -Salon all 1,396 news articles »

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After Georgia's Close Race, Montana Democrats Demand Party's Attention - New York Times