Fat Tax

One of my friends sent me a clip from Facebook that was an article from August about the Louisiana legislature establishing a tax on obese government employees. It would be similar to the $25.00 fee they now charge employees that smoke at work or at home. The thought behind it seems to be that regular healthy folks should not be carring the weight financially for the care that obese folks have to have in the hospitals. Since a lot of poor folks are both obese and uninsured, they want to tax them.

This wrong on so, so many levels.

But I have a solution. One even I could vote for, in good conscience.

Don't tax the obese. Tax the things that make them obese. Put a tax on foods that have hydrogenated vegetable oil in them. Tax carbs...say a half-cent per carb? My Slim-Fast would then cost about 2 cents more. But six of those crunchy peanutbutter and cheese crackers would cost about $.50 more. Menu items with gravy and wonderfully unhealthy sauces would be more than similar foods prepared without them.

Taxing carbs would also lift awareness about the consequences of food choices. Greater educational exposure would create an environment where the possiblity of good changes is not only possible, but probable.

Tax all the food supplements that the government subsidizes...that enter our daily food chain, that line our arteries. Provide us with choices we can afford to make. And we'll be happy to make them. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Happy eating!