Retailers get defensive about pop prices

I stopped the other day at a place to get myself something to eat – a hamburger and Coca Cola (I took a pass on the fries) – and wound up getting into something of a quarrel with the manager over the price.

There might have been fewer questions if all posted the pop tax data as clearly as this McDonald's franchise did. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

Admittedly, when I heard how much was being charged, I tried to question the cost. Which caused the manager to go into a long diatribe about how this “damned tax” on pop and other sweetened beverages was causing him to jack up his own prices.

ACTUALLY, I WAS curious about the cost of the burger, and it took me a couple of minutes before I was able to cut off the manager and inform him I wasn’t questioning the cost of the soft drink.

He eventually gave me the straight answer about the burger price, and it seems the high price of the bill was due to the hamburger. Which means that, from my perspective, I now know of a place I won’t try to eat at again.

It was expensive, a bit too much for just a burger and Coke!

But what caught my attention about the incident was the quickness of the fast-food franchise manager to come to the aid of his cashier and engage in such a quarrel. I sense that many people are complaining about pop prices and are haranguing the hired help about the tab (and no, I don’t mean the soft drink Tab, which I honestly can’t recall the last time I saw it for sale anywhere).

ARE RESTAURANTEURS GETTING that touchy that they feel the need to defend themselves against complaining customers, many of whom admittedly are just cheapskates who likely will look for any excuse to complain about the price? Which is how I perceive the We Ask America survey showing 85.94 percent of people wanting the tax repealed, and 77.59 percent less likely to vote for county board President Toni Preckwinkle's re-election.

It is with incidents such as this in mind that I am not surprised to learn that the Can the Tax Coalition is going around citing statistics saying that beverage sales are on the decline by 47 percent in Cook County.

I’m sure the coalition, which gets its money from the American Beverage Association and other support from the Illinois Food Retailers Association, wants us to believe that this is a matter of people making special trips to surrounding counties or out-of-state (if they live near the Illinois/Indiana border) to buy their pop.

Some of it may be.

BUT I ALSO wonder if some of it a matter of people deciding that with the potentially significant boost in price due to the penny per ounce tax on such beverages, perhaps there just isn’t as much of a need to consume so much carbonation.

Which would mean that the county tax may be serving one of its stated goals – to help boost the public health by reducing the level of sugar that people consume. Although I’ll be the first to admit that the purpose of any tax is to raise revenue – and not to reduce consumption of anything.

Not even the taxes that get assessed on tobacco products that can make the price of a package of cigarettes so absurdly high that it’s a wonder anybody bothers to smoke.

But they still do!

NOW I DON’T know for sure how much of this so-called decline in pop sales is due to people just drinking less pop. It may be wishful thinking on my part. I’m also sure that some people will start thinking of their consumption of carbonation as something resembling a revolutionary statement.

Which is sad, if that’s really the biggest issue they have to get so worked up over.

My point here is to say I’m skeptical about this latest statistic, which the pop industry lobbyists touted on Wednesday as part of their effort in coming weeks leading up to the Cook County Board’s finance committee reviewing a measure to repeal the tax.

We’re going to get a lot of rhetoric from all sides of this equation from people who claim they’re looking out for our personal freedoms, but only care about them so long as they match up with their own financial interests!

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Is Rauner headed down political path reminiscent of Blagojevich era?

Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner may want to believe he’s unique and special and is Illinois’ political savior, but there’s a part of me who wonders if the next four years are going to turn into a fracas that will make the Rod Blagojevich years seem meek and quiet by comparison.

Because the overbearing way Rod Blagojevich tried to run state government is what is popping into my mind when I see the tactics being used by Rauner these days.

BY TACTICS, I’M referring to that memorandum from his budgetary staff that Rauner made sure was publicly distributed. The one headed “Sins of the Past and Dishonest State Budgets.”

           

It shows that the cheap rhetoric we heard during the campaign season in which he tried to make Pat Quinn out to be a venal, corrupt hack is going to be the same line of logic he’s going to continue to spew.

“Illinois’ massive budget hole is the direct result of previous governors and General Assemblies giving away benefits they knew the state couldn’t afford, deploying fundamentally dishonest budget practices and kicking the can down the road,” the memo said.

We’re probably going to continue to get accounts of how everything that goes wrong during the Rauner Administration (which we’re 10 days away from now) is somehow Pat Quinn’s fault, and how the way the General Assembly can help to resolve problems is to shut up and do what the governor tells them to do.

THAT MAY WELL be the way a corporate CEO can get away with behaving, because if their company goes out of business due to management ineptitude it’s just themselves who get hurt.

Government isn’t business, and can’t be run in the same way. It has responsibilities that need to be fulfilled, even if certain ideologically-inclined people think the way to balance a government budget is to cut the services they’d prefer not to offer.

It doesn’t work that way.

It’s not just the memo that grates on my nerves these days.

THERE’S ALSO THE Crain’s Chicago Business report this week that points out the $20 million (and possibly growing) fund Rauner has created in his campaign operation. Rauner says he’s not saving now for a 2018 re-election bid. The money will be spent to have a partisan political operation to influence government officials to go along with his desires.

The money is coming partly from Rauner himself (he’s been elected governor, and is still spending his own cash on his campaigning), but also from business executives Ken Griffin and Dick Uihlein – who gave massive amounts of money to the election last year.

That money could wind up paying for future media campaigns meant to sling mud at legislators who don’t go along with the governor’s desires. Which would mean the ugliness of the 2014 election cycle could well become the style of governing for Rauner – “Shut up and do what you’re told, or else!”

If that becomes true, it won’t be long before we all (even those of us who were eager to dump Quinn from office) start counting down the days until the November 2018 election when this Rauner term would be over.

NOW HOW DO I bring up a Blagojevich comparison?

Let’s recall the ugly relations that developed between Blagojevich and a General Assembly that theoretically should have been aligned with the former governor.

We all heard stories of how Blagojevich felt compelled to put his foot down on the neck of Democratic leaders, including Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who snubbed him when he was a mere legislator from the Lincoln Square neighborhood back in the early 1990s.

But that attitude of wanting to let the legislators know who the “boss” truly was created the tensions that rose to outright hatred so that when Blagojevich encountered his legal problems, his alleged allies were more than eager to go along with the notion of impeachment.

I COULD ENVISION Rauner becoming so overbearing that the political people in Springfield will look for excuses to turn on him.

Heaven forbid he should ever do anything in coming years that actually attracts the attention of federal prosecutors. Because he could create a mess of people eager to believe the worst – which is actually the last thing we need in Chicago and Illinois.

Rauner needs to be reminded that as governor, he is head of the executive branch of government – which is equal to the legislative and judicial branches. It’s not like he’s the mayor of Chicago who can get away with such strong-arm tactics. The opposition will speak up.

Being governor is nice and has influence, but it doesn’t make him the king. We all know that only Mel Brooks as Louis XVI is the King, and it’s good for him.

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