A tax on bottled water is not a tax on common sense as your March 5 editorial would suggest, but rather a tax on vanity.

Companies like Coca-Cola have done a great job marketing their filtered tap-water as some kind of magic potion that justifies a $5/gallon price tag (think about that the next time you complain about the price of gas.)

For Coca Cola’s Bob Slack to wring his hands about a 100 percent price increase due to the proposed tax is hypocritical, given the 100,000 percent markup he’s already slapped on the tap water he’s peddling.

We have a plentiful supply of perhaps the best water available anywhere in the world, literally on tap in multiple rooms of our homes, at a ridiculously low price. Nobody who pays for bottled water in Washington is in a position to lecture anybody about financial responsibility.

Murray Chapman, Redmond