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.
A big reason to stay at home for a few weeks?
New Jersey's Senate on Monday voted to provide paid family leave in the state. The measure will provide up to six weeks paid leave to care for a newborn, newly adopted child or a seriously ill family member. Workers taking the leave would receive up to two-thirds of their salary (up to a maximum of $524 weekly), which would be funded by an 0.09 percent tax on workers' salaries that would amount to an average of roughly $33 a year.
I understand her pain. Elizabeth has a lot of responsibility: a full-time job, plus two young kids at home. I would find it overwhelming. But does that mean the government should impose leave, day care, and flex-time policies on employers or make taxpayers bear the cost for the choices women make?
No!
All these well-intended laws have unintended consequences, and the consequences are usually worse than the problem they were meant to solve. When governments require companies to provide paid maternity leave and other benefits, many firms avoid hiring women. How is that good for women?
Business groups argue that paid leave would encourage significantly more workers to take time off and that replacing them would be too burdensome for small companies. However, a legislative study in California suggests these fears may be unfounded. During the first year of the program, which took effect in 2004, only about 1 percent of the eligible employees filed for benefits — a number that has not increased significantly since.
A survey by the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy reports that 169 countries offer mothers paid maternal leave and 66 offer new fathers paid leave. Thirty-nine nations grant paid leave to workers whose children are ill, and 23 offer it to employees to care for other family members.
It’s time for more states in America to follow suit. Better yet, Congress should make paid family leave national policy. Elected officials would then be in a better position to talk about the importance of the family without sounding hypocritical.
