I have written about the fat tax before. Most people, I’m sure, just took it as another of my crazy old man ideas. Well, it’s not. Reuters reported this week that the Institute of Medicine has proclaimed the obesity problem is so deeply rooted it will take dramatic and systemic measures to fix it. According to the IOM we are talking about everything from overhauling farm policies and zoning laws to a tax on soda.
I’m not going into all the details of the report, because you would be as bored as I was reading it. However, I will agree that we do have an obesity problem in this country. If you don’t think so, just go anywhere and you can see it. There are multiple causes but not one legitimate government solution.
Let’s just look at a soda tax. If a one cent per ounce tax is charged for a soda, is that going to suddenly make everybody skinny? Nope. And, how about skinny people being forced to pay the tax? I like soda and I am not going to pay the tax. If I drank two gallons per day, I wouldn’t gain an ounce.
Do the people that come up with all these ‘brilliant’ ideas ever have a logical though? That’s a rhetorical question.
Maybe I can get a tax exemption card because I am so thin.
I’ll buy a lot of soda and sell it to obese people for a fat profit.
PMO
©2011
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