A gold mine for government?
Tobacco and alcohol have long been subject to "sin taxes" used by state and federal governments to pay for children's and health programs. Now a new sin may join the list: Fast food.
Before you dismiss this agenda as the pie-in-the-sky wish list of wannabe social engineers, consider the trajectory of the Twinkie tax, which has gone from reductio ad absurdum to serious policy proposal in just a few years. In a June 1994 newspaper ad that criticized proposals to sharply raise tobacco taxes, R.J. Reynolds said: "Today it's cigarettes. Will high-fat foods be next?" Anti-smoking activists traditionally responded to this sort of slippery-slope argument by insisting that cigarettes were unique, "the only legal product that when used as intended causes death." To suggest that anti-smoking measures might pave the way for attacks on cheeseburgers and ice cream, they said, was just silly.
Yet six months after R.J. Reynolds tried to scare people with the outlandish prospect of a tax on fatty foods, Yale University's Kelly Brownell endorsed the idea on the op-ed page of The New York Times, citing the precedent set by cigarette taxes. He said "taxing foods with little nutritional value" would deter consumption and help raise money for bike paths, running tracks, and nutrition education. "Fatty foods would be judged on their nutritive value per calorie or gram of fat," he explained. "The least healthy would be given the highest tax rate."
If the low “cost” of eating fast food is adding to the obesity problem, the solution involves increasing the cost, even in a nominal way. How do we give individuals the incentive to pay a little more — increased physical exertion, lack of convenience — to get their food? This is where a drive-through tax comes in.
We could tax the drive-through purchases at, say, 10 percent, while leaving the purchase of walk-in meals alone. At the very least, it may entice some to park and walk rather than waiting in the car.
Now, this may seem an invasion of personal choice or another step toward a nanny state. Maybe. But there are other arguments to be made. We tax cigarettes in part because of their health cost. Similarly, the individual’s decision to lead a sedentary lifestyle will end up costing taxpayers. In 2001, the surgeon general issued a report noting that obesity and its complications cost the nation $117 billion annually, much of it through Medicare and Medicaid.
Imposing a drive-through tax would be one way of recouping future taxpayer outlays — perhaps revenues could go directly to government health programs. And who knows, it could help the environment, too: with one move, we could fight obesity and reduce emissions from all those cars idling in the line at Burger King.
John McCain says the United States could stay "100 years... 1,000... 1 million years" in Iraq. But what does he mean?
The liberal group MoveOn.org began airing ads Wednesday against Republican John McCain, citing his claim that the U.S.
Haven't we been listening to talk of "100 years" of war in Iraq for 100 years now? It certainly feels that way. But this favorite talking point of the two Democrats presidential candidates is bogus.
"Instead of offering an exit strategy for Iraq, (Sen. John McCain is) offering us a 100-year occupation," Sen. Barack Obama said on the fifth anniversary of the coalition’s move on the then-oppressed Iraq. But it could have been any day; Obama uses the sound bite often enough.
What the "100 years" talk refers to is something McCain rightly said in response to a question during a New Hampshire townhall meeting in January. The question regarded Bush’s statement that we could be in Iraq for 50 more years. McCain sensibly responded: "Make it 100. We’ve . . . been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, that’s fine with me. I hope that would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting and equipping and motivating people every single day."
When asked to clarify, he would go on to say that it could be 1,000 years, or even a million years. These are the lines that try Democrats’ souls. But McCain was right about the long war. It was a sensible answer. And though it doesn’t sound like the most attractive answer -- who wants 100 years in Iraq? -- it was straight talk from a senator who has a better track record on Iraq than most. And it may not hurt his campaign, either.
John McCain has been insisting that his 100 years in Iraq comment is being taken out of context. That in fact what he meant is that American troops can stay in Iraq for fifty or 100 years if American troops are no longer being attacked. This assertion leads to a whole new set of questions that reflect McCain's lack of understanding of what is going on inside Iraq.
First of all, how exactly does Senator McCain envision getting to a point where there are no American casualties in Iraq? The idea of a large American troop presence in Iraq that does not draw any fire is farfetched. What we have in Iraq today is some odd and complicated mix of numerous sectarian conflicts with Americans stuck in the middle. This isn’t Korea. There will be no armistice or Demilitarized Zone. Senator McCain has not laid out any kind of a roadmap or strategy for how we get to this idealized scenario where American forces are no longer being fired upon.
Second, how long does he think it will take to get to this end state that he envisions? Will it take 10 years? Will it take 20? 30? When under his plan do American troops stop taking casualties? It would be good to know.
Finally, there is the question of a permanent presence in Iraq and the strategic costs to the United States. One of the Bush Administration’s premises for the war in Iraq, was the idea that we needed to eliminate Al Qaeda. But one of the major inspirations for Al Qaeda, was the American presence in Saudi Arabia. In a similar way, creating a large permanent troop presence in Iraq would act as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and draw anger and suspicion from all over the Arab World.
Drill, drill on the range?
It's a never-ending debate. Republicans say Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should be opened for oil drilling to help America achieve energy self-sufficiency. Democrats and environmentalists say there's not enough oil in ANWR to achieve that goal -- and certainly not enough to make it worth the environmental damage.
It's hard for the United States to complain that other countries limit access to their reserves when we're doing the same. If higher U.S. production reduced world prices, other countries might expand production. What they couldn't get from prices they'd try to get from greater sales.
On environmental grounds, the alternatives to more drilling are usually worse. Subsidies for ethanol made from corn have increased food prices and used scarce water, with few benefits. If oil is imported, it's vulnerable to tanker spills. By contrast, local production is probably safer. There were 4,000 platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit. Despite extensive damage, there were no major spills, says Robbie Diamond of Securing America's Future Energy, an advocacy group.
Perhaps oil prices will drop when some long-delayed projects begin production or if demand slackens. But the basic problem will remain. Though dependent on foreign oil, we might conceivably curb the power of foreign producers. But this is not a task of a month or a year. It is a task of decades; new production projects take that long. If we don't start now, our future dependence and its dangers will grow. Count on it.
I know we’ve been down this road before, but since it’s been a while, and in light of Bush’s emphasis on ANWR, it’s probably worth keeping a few details in mind that the president neglected to mention.
"Drilling in ANWR would likely produce only 3.2 billion barrels of oil, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, not even enough to satisfy six months’ demand; oil would not begin to reach the market for another 10 years; and it would take 50 years to extract the full amount. For this pittance, the House leadership and the administration are willing to disturb hundreds of acres of pristine wildlife habitat."
I’d just add that the NYT reported a while back that oil companies are now “largely uninterested in drilling” in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, because “any oil from the refuge would meet only a tiny fraction of America’s needs.”
My hunch is, the White House wanted to a) look like they were offering a proposal to address the gas-price problem; and b) try to pin high prices on congressional Democrats. I’d be surprised if anyone really fell for this nonsense, but given the president’s enthusiasm, it’s worth setting the record straight.
