ViewpointViewpoint: Can U.S. local soda taxes continue to spread?

•Since 2014, taxes intended to reduce soda consumption have been enacted in seven American cities.•This is a new trend, in part made possible by philanthropic support to pro-tax citizen groups.•Each of the cities enacting taxes has been heavily dominated by the Democratic Party.•More US cities became Democratic recently, even as Democratic strength was weakening at the state and federal level.•At the local level alone, there is potential for soda taxes to spread to cover up to 40 percent of the US population.

Taxes to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) such as soda drinks have been endorsed by the World Health Organization and are now in place in France, Hungary, and Mexico, and scheduled for Portugal, South Africa, and Great Britain. Such taxes have so far been impossible to enact in the United States at the state or federal level, but since 2014 seven local jurisdictions have put them in place. Three necessary conditions for local political enactment emerge from this recent experience: Democratic Party dominance, external financial support for pro-tax advocates, and a political message appropriate to the process (public health for ballot issues; budget revenue for city council votes). Roughly 40 percent of Americans live within local jurisdictions where the Democratic Party dominates, so room exists for local SSB taxes to continue spreading.