Econ 101 Again

The Cook County Soda Tax is about to take effect, and so will another demonstration of Economics 101 to ignorant politicians.  Toni Prickwrinkle was on the news yesterday talking about how she had surveyed other places that a beverage tax had been implemented and "discovered" soda consumption was down, thereby improving the public's health. The trouble is, consumption wasn't down - people shopped elsewhere where the tax wasn't as onerous, but that doesn't fit her busybody government narrative.

It ties into a question we asked around a week ago - has anyone in the media even tried to research what effect the Gun and Ammo tax had on crime? Or how much was actually collected? Here's a story not getting much coverage:

• When the City of Seattle passed a tax on all sales of guns and ammunition, the measure was hailed as a way to defray the rising costs of gun violence.
  
  But since the tax took effect, those costs have only risen as gun violence in the city has surged. And the tax has apparently brought in much less than city leaders projected it would.
  
  [...] Seattle City Councilman Tim Burgess introduced the tax in 2015. It puts a $25 tax on every firearm sold in the city and up to 5 cents per round of ammunition. The measure easily passed and took effect January 1, 2016. Comparing the first five months of 2017 with the same period before the gun tax went into effect, reports of shots fired are up 13 percent, the number of people injured in shootings climbed 37 percent and gun deaths doubled, according to crime statistics from the Seattle Police Department.

That is almost exactly the same tax scheme Prickwrinkle put into effect - and the crime increases are similar, too. And how much revenue did it produce in Seattle?

• In selling his gun tax to the public, Burgess predicted it would generate between $300,000 and $500,000 annually. The money would be used to study the root causes of gun violence in hopes of reducing the costs to taxpayers.
  
  Seattle officials refuse to say how much the tax brought in the first year, only giving the number “under $200,000.” Gun rights groups have sued to get the exact amount.

So Prickwrinkle probably has a hole in her budget from over-estimating the "violence" tax and is about to have another one from the soda tax. Shortshanks did the same thing with his bottled water tax - sales plummeted in the city and skyrocketed in the suburbs, costing the city probable millions at a dime per.

And once again, the media isn't doing any sort of follow-up.