Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Sen. Randy Brock, R-Swanton, a Vermont State Senator representing the Franklin District. He is a former State Auditor.
Now that Vermont’s Attorney General and several score of his non-profit association acolytes have determined that we all must be protected against Coca-Cola, it’s time to begin looking more broadly for other dragons that we can slay with our tax code.
If a one cent tax on sugary beverages can cure obesity and produce $30 million in annual tax revenue, think what other good we could do. Rather than focusing on indirect causes like soda pop, we should go to the heart of the problem: food. Let’s simply tax food by the calorie. The higher the calories in a single serving, the higher the tax. A Burger King Double Whooper with Cheese at 990 calories could have a 10 cent tax attached. A carrot, with only 30 calories would be essentially tax-free.
Let’s simply tax food by the calorie. The higher the calories in a single serving, the higher the tax. A Burger King Double Whooper with Cheese at 990 calories could have a 10 cent tax attached. A carrot, with only 30 calories would be essentially tax-free.
People who are heavier obviously take a greater toll on our roads and bridges than do the lean and fit. Let’s add a poundage tax, paid annually when we register our cars. Better still, since the statewide property tax is based on household income, why don’t we also consider household weight? If your family has a higher per capita weight than average, you’ll pay more property tax. This will encourage more responsible eating, reduce obesity and also reduce the wear and tear on our roads. In keeping with Vermont’s reputation for having simple and easy to understand taxes, we can create a process so as not to penalize heavier people whose proportion of muscle mass to fat is more favorable, thus allowing them to receive weight-sensitivity tax rebates. We could also apply the same kinds of obscure rules that now apply to education funding. In this way, we can quickly have taxpayers wonder why, even though they’ve cut their weight in half, their poundage tax continues to rise.
We could encourage healthy behavior by providing a tax credit on health club memberships and a tax penalty on fast-food restaurants. Couch potatoes could be taxed to discourage sedentary behavior. One idea is simply to install a coin-operated meter on every couch: You must deposit a quarter for every hour you sit on it. The Vermont Couchometer would produce millions in tax revenue. But we must be mindful of the effect of this on those who live near the Connecticut River. There will be tremendous temptation to watch television from couches situated in New Hampshire, thus losing even more tax revenue to the Granite State.
Of course, there will always be those among us who try to evade doing what’s good for them. But Vermont can become a laboratory among the states in developing new technologies to protect its citizens from their own bad behaviors. We could encourage the development of healthy industries, focused on areas such as intrusive personal surveillance, portion control and innovation in nagging.
The beauty of all of this is that we can create hundreds of good-paying government jobs to enforce this new regimen. Indeed, we may need to create an entirely new agency to monitor, tax and police our personal habits. It could be called the Department of Uniform Monastic Behavior (DUMB), and would likely soon become the largest agency in state government. George Orwell’s nanny would be proud.
