Anybody hear if this is making its way to the U.S.?
I was thinking, maybe they should tax death. That way “public life expectancy” will increase. Hell, why not outlaw death altogether…then everyone will live forever!
http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/16/study-a-20-fat-tax-would-improve-public-health/
Wha? Did I miss something?
LOL And here I was being sarcastic, Clayton. I forgot about that death tax.
BTW, when I make a post, it never shows until I reply to myself and type in “True.” Any way you guys know of to get it right the first time?
P.S. The quote in the article that I thought many on here would get a kick out of is the following:
“Economists generally agree that government intervention, including taxation, is justified when the market fails to provide the optimum amount of a good for society’s well-being,” writes Mytton. “[This] include[s] a failure to appreciate the true association between diet and disease, time inconsistency (preference for short-term gratification over long-term well-being), and not bearing the full health and social costs of consumption.”
They must be talking about White House economists.
(As Devil’s advocate)
Why not? If it substantially improves public health, what’s the big deal?
A number of reasons.
Tax is wrong because theft is wrong.
The role of the government is not to determine what is best for its citizens, nor what is safest. It ought to only seek to enforce laws concerning one’s life (individuality), liberty (freedom to choose) and property (private ownership of capital) in my opinion.
Protecting someone from himself is morally wrong and pointless; wrong because only individuals know what is best for themselves and pointless because people will inevitably live how they want and develop a black market of pizza, donuts and whatever else government claims is unhealthy.
Lastly, to build upon reason 3, the government can ultimately determine anything to be unhealthy, and they could essentially tax everything except what they deem to be healthy. Depending on the mood of the administration, water could be deemed unhealthy and taxed 100% or even more. In the eyes of the government, what it says it correct simply because it’s the government. Disgusting logic.
Firstly, depending on the elasticity of demand, it might not effect the consumption of ‘fat’ and thus it might have no effect on ‘public health’, and would simply result in an even greater amount of wealth unjustly expropriated from the populace. For the sake of the argument, however, let’s assume that the products taxed disappear from sale. There was a reason why people chose those products over others - enjoyment - and there are many non-food substitutes that provide this and are possibly even more damaging to ‘public health’, e.g. alcohol, tobacco, other drugs. Now let’s assume for the sake of argument that these also disappear due to taxes and prohibtion. Well, what are we left with? Nothing other than the ridiculous Puritanism that HL Mencken rightly characterised as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
It is to avoid absurd policies such as these that we must make choices based on the ultimate end of happiness, rather than on subsidiary means to that end. Of course, to the bureaucrat, the happiness of his subjects matters little - but with better ‘public health’, he has more working subjects with less costly upkeep (which is even more of an issue where there is socialised ‘healthcare’ and the resulting tragedy of the commons). That is the true reason for this kind of legislation.
Bonus “emotional appeal” reason it is bad: fat tax falls disproportionately on the poor and minorities.
But 1), what if the tax benefits people more than it harms them? The government will prevent millions of people from having medical problems.
2), is a matter of opinion.
3), individuals make bad decisions, would you argue that children should be allowed to buy drugs and consume them since stopping them from doing so would be protecting them from themselves?
4), we know certain things are just unhealthy, and taking fat 20 percent would decrease obesity, a horrible epidemic in this great nation.
According to the article, it’s not actually a direct tax on fat people but instead a general sales tax on “junk foods,” in particular sugar-sweetened beverages.
So really it’s a soda tax.
This doesn’t refute my argument that taxing people is synonymous with stealing from them.
True, but you didn’t exactly refute my argument for the ethics of government.
Who determines that they make bad decisions? A council of some sort? I’d be surprised for you to know what is best for me or the rest of humanity. Tell me, am I hot, cold, indifferent, hungry, thirsty, satiated, happy, sad, stoic, regretful, relieved…?
This points to my reasons number 1 and 2. One, theft is unethical, even according to government standards (despite their hypocrisy). Two, when government is focused around preserving one’s individualistic choices in relation to his property, what say would they have in taxing anything?
I have just posted a thorough response to triknighted on my website.
So what if the tax were effective, would you still not support it?
Does the possible end of reducing obesity make the unethical nature of the means worth it to you?
I, for one, would still not support it.
Not at all.
I see no reason to agree that it is a good thing for me to be forced to place the welfare of others above that of myself and my children.
Clayton -
Well alright then.
That’s right. Now what?
Now I try to find data on junk food taxes and see if they do what they’re supposed to do. It seems to be a foregone conclusion in the article that they do but the scientific articles I’ve found relating to this issue seem inconclusive at the moment. I still need to do more research.