Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Wants A Fat Tax
No, it’s not a tax on all fat people. Just people on government programs like Medicaid. If you’re on a program like Medicaid, and you fail to keep what the government establishes as a healthy weight, you pay a tax or fine.
It’s interesting that the host asks when taxing or punishing people for their weight became acceptable policy. I’d note that it’s been acceptable policy for a long time. For as long as so-called “sin taxes” or excise taxes on things like tobacco, alcohol and other products/activities the government has decided are unhealthy.
The government has been trying to tax us into good health for a long time. What’s being proposed in Arizona is just a new variation on an old theme. In places like New York and San Francisco they want to tax sugary drinks and fast food. In Arizona they’re just taxing the other side of the equation. Namely, your weight.
The moral of this story is two fold. First, when you’re dependent on the government, you’re at the mercy of the government. We should be wary of government programs that promote government dependency, because once you’re dependent on the government they can pass policy to manipulate how you live your life.
The other moral is that we shouldn’t support this kind of government social engineering. The tax code shouldn’t be used to manipulate how we live our lives. We shouldn’t support “sin taxes’ when it’s alcohol or tobacco in the cross hairs, because that inevitably leads to the sort of policy now being proposed in Arizona.
Which, I think, most of us can agree is objectionable.
Tags: arizona, fat tax, jan brewer, nanny statism
