City of Philadelphia successfully passes a soda tax

City of Philadelphia successfully passes a soda tax: Last week, Philadelphia became the first major city to pass a 'soda tax.' While other cities have tried and ultimately failed to pass similar pieces of legislation, Philadelphia was successful. So what made Philadelphia different? Picture from Flickr user Scribe215 The first thing to note is that this wasn't the first time such a bill had been proposed in Philadelphia. The Mayor at the time (Michael Nutter), proposed a similar bill back in 2011 to help compensate for a shortfall in the Philadelphia School District budget. However, this didn't go anywhere and the bill ultimately failed. This time around, the new Mayor (Jim Kenney), used a two pronged approach to justify the tax. Or, put more cynically, a two pronged approach to sell the tax in the court of public opinion. The first salvo was that soft drinks are bad for you. By raising the price, this will make them less a 'standard food,' and more an 'occasional food' (theoretically). Adding this tax will help wean people off of soft