A Modest Proposal
By
Michael J. English
In
1990 the good people of Oregon were duped into changing the base of funding for
schools from the property tax to the income tax. This change in tax base also brought with it a change in control
of the funding. No longer did local
communities have the ability to decide how much they wanted to support their
schools; this decision was left to the state legislature. With the State
funding schools and other large agencies, general fund dollars were stretched to the maximum. With the passage of the super majority law,
it became almost impossible to increase revenue through increasing taxes that
would apply equally to all taxpayers. So, legislators hit upon a new
tactic: Get the majority of the
taxpayers to tax a minority and if that minority were addicted to something,
that would be even better. Because if
the minority were addicted to something that could be taxed, they would continue
to buy it no matter how much it was taxed. This became known as sin taxes.
We now fund schools and other social programs though
taxing people who are addicted to the sins of smoking, drinking and gambling.
We have, however, reached a point of diminishing returns. We cannot continue to
increase the taxes on these sins without killing the proverbial goose. We
need to find another sin: How about taxing one of the
seven biblical sins, gluttony?
This new sin tax or "Fat Tax" would only apply to
those people identified as being obese. Obesity would be defined by some
arbitrary standard such as the American Medical Association definition of being
forty or more pounds over ideal weight for height and age. The question is, how
would we implement such a tax?
Implementing the tax could take place anywhere food is
sold. For example, at the grocery check
out stand people would stand on a scale and swipe their driver’s license, which
had been encoded with the necessary data, through a scanning machine as their
groceries were being totaled. If the
purchaser were identified as being obese, a nickel per pond over the standard
would be added to their grocery bill. A similar system could be installed at
restaurants. Before being seated, patrons would step on a scale and swipe their
driver’s licenses through a scanner producing a meal document, that would add
the appropriate amount of tax when totaled. Fast food places could be handled
in a different way. It is generally recognized that fast food is not good for
anyone and can lead to obesity. Therefore, to encourage good nutritional eating habits and discourage
obesity, all fast food would be taxed five cents on the dollar.
These tax increases would be relatively easy to
promote to the voters. Legislators
could use rationales similar to that used to convince non-smoking voters to tax
smokers and non-drinking voters to tax drinkers. Voters could be convinced that by passing these taxes they would,
if fact, be doing their civic duty. Just like smokers, obese people incur
unnecessary health costs to the public health system and they should help pay
these costs through a tax. By taxing obesity and poor nutrition habits, obese people
may be motivated to lose weight, and some of the revenue could be used to help
educate young people of the benefits of healthy diets and exercise.
With the increase demand for public services such as
aid to children and families, unemployment benefits, health services for the
indigent and elderly, adequate funding of public education and the list goes
on, reliance on the income tax and the few sin taxes voters have approved has
proven to be inadequate. In the tradition of both Jonathan Swift and the post
ballot measure five tax mentality of the majority, taxing the minority, passage
of this modest proposal of a "Fat Tax" would help to solve the fiscal woes of
the State of Oregon