Soda-Pop Industry Pours it On! – Another $3.5 Million for Tax Rollback Campaign

That’s Not a Repeat – Beverage Association Puts in $7 Million Since Beginning of Month, $10 Million Total

By Erik Smith

Staff writer/ Washington State Wire

OLYMPIA, Aug. 18.—The American Beverage Association has pumped another $3.5 million into the state pop-distributors’ campaign to roll back this year’s grocery taxes, making it clear that Initiative 1107, at least as far as Washington ballot measures are concerned, has the taste that beats the others cold.

            That makes $7 million they’ve put into the campaign this month – enough to blanket the state with TV advertising in the weeks before the November general election. It puts the measure so far ahead of the other five initiatives on the ballot this year that the others are in the dust. And the anti-tax theme that will be sounded in the effort may help pull other conservative-themed initiative campaigns along with it.

            They include Initiative 1053, the measure that would restore a two-thirds vote requirement for the Legislature to raise taxes, the business campaign that aims to defeat I-1098, the income-tax initiative, and possibly even I-1082, the business-backed campaign that would allow private competition for the state workers’ compensation system.

The new $3.5 million contribution was made Aug. 12 and showed up on the state Public Disclosure Commission website Tuesday.

Would Repeal Broad Group of Taxes

The measure would repeal this year’s pop-tax increase, to be sure, but it also would roll back other taxes imposed by the Legislature this year as part of a budget-balancing maneuver. I-1107 also would repeal newly-imposed sales taxes on candy, gum and bottled water, and would restore a tax break for canned-food processors that lawmakers eliminated.

It’s the pop tax, though, that has drawn the distributors’ ire. It was adopted without a hearing on the final weekend of the 2010 legislative session, and it amounts to two cents a can on a 12-ounce can of soda pop. That tax is set to run for three years.

By targeting a larger group of taxes, the pop distributors hope to achieve a broader appeal. The state Office of Financial Management estimates that the measure would cost the state coffers about $352 million over five years.

The Washington Beverage Associaton, with financial backing from their national organization, have raised about $10 million for the campaign so far, though about $2.5 million of that was spent getting the initiative on the ballot.