July 12, 2007
Brit Experts Push for 'Fat Tax'
Think the nanny state couldn't get more nannyish? You ain't seen nothin' yet! Experts in Britain are urging their government to impose what's being a called a "fat tax." No, not people actually being taxed for being fat, but a tax on foods deemed unhealthy and prone to contributing to obesity.
The author of the report, Dr Mike Rayner, told Sky News: "There's an overabundance of cheap, bad food in this country and we need to tax it, to make it more expensive, to make people switch to healthy foods.
"If we do have a tax on unhealthy food it will raise money for the Inland Revenue and a good way of spending that would be to subsidise healthy food."
Holy cow! Even uber-nanny state guy Tony Blair said no to this idea when it was first proposed back in 2004 because it went too far. But now that Gordon Brown is in office, perhaps proponents think they have a fair chance.
Of course many foods considered to be nutritious, when consumed in excess, can cause obesity. Which foods would be considered unhealthy enough to be taxed, and who would be in charge of choosing those foods?
Personal responsibility, folks. But nanny staters don't believe in personal responsibility, because people making decisions for themselves doesn't keep bureaucrats in power.
This video by 18 Doughty Street is worth seeing again (I've posted it in the past). Where will the taxing in Britain end? And how long will it be before leftwing nannystaters here decide such a tax is a good idea as well? Don't tell Mike "Trans Fat Ban" Bloomberg about it!
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People in Europe will need to accept this as being part of the new European Empire, President(King)Barusso of the EE explains in this clip found at YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2Ralocq9uE
Remind me to never go to England. I'd owe about $300,000!
Posted by: Wyatt Earp at July 12, 2007 12:03 PMThe government often decides what's cheap and expensive in the store (and no, not just in England -- right here in the good ol' USA) by giving subsidies to those who produce certain crops and products. A better idea than taxing the final consumable is to just give those subsidies to the farmers who produce nutritious and healthy food instead of those who produce things that become Doritos and soda pop.
Posted by: Ro at July 12, 2007 12:49 PMI'm against subsidies too, by the way.
There is a flaw to your plan: Corn is one nutritious thing that ends up in both soda (as high fructose corn syrup) and Doritos. Potatoes, another nutritious food, end up as potato chips and french fries. Will the government start telling the farmers who grow these vegetables who they can or can't sell their crops to, or otherwise penalize them for selling to manufacturers of certain products? When will it end?
Posted by: Pam at July 13, 2007 08:49 AMPam -- You totally hit on one of the huge subsidized foods(and exactly what I was talking about): corn. The idea would be to roll the huge subsidies back on things like corn and soy, so that these things are not super-processed and then put into absolutely everything that needs to be fried or sweetened. As for potatoes -- nothing wrong with them unless you deep fry them in partially hydrogenated soybean oil. I could, in theory, go along with a system with no subsidies at all, except that it's just so much cheaper to go into anything but farming without them, and I think you'd agree that we do need enough farmers to feed our country. (I know many would argue that the free market balances that out, but first-world countries just don't let people starve while the free market is adjusting.)
Posted by: Ro at July 16, 2007 12:33 PM
