Time for us to get taxed by the pound

If you are reading this column, you are probably too fat. No, I’m not psychic. I just happen to know that a solid majority of Americans are overweight, so the odds are that most of the people who are reading these words could stand to lose a few pounds. Now the question you are probably asking yourself is this - what is the federal government doing about my weight problem?

The answer to that question, according to a group of nutrition and economics experts who published an opinion piece in a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is that it isn’t doing nearly as much as it should. What we need, say these experts, is a tax on soda pop.

They contend that a steep tax on sugary beverages is a brilliant concept for the same reason that cigarette taxes were a good idea. Such a tax would discourage people from using a product that is not good for them and it would also raise new revenue that the government could spend on much needed programs to further improve public health. That is what we call a win-win scenario.

You might think that congress would be all over a great idea like this one, but to date none of the proposed health care reform bills has included language mandating a soda tax. There was discussion of such a tax when the bills were being crafted, but fears of a backlash from the powerful soft drink industry and angry soft drink addicts prompted lawmakers to back away from the idea. For now.

Let’s face it - it is only a matter of time before we are paying a hefty add-on fee for our Cokes and Pepsis and Dr. Peppers. And it is unlikely that they will stop there. Candy bars, potato chips, movie theater popcorn, and other bad-for-you treats will undoubtedly be sin-taxed as well at some point.

But why not go even further? If we are going to tax our way to better health, there are other consumer products that contribute to our collective obesity that we should be penalized for indulging in.

For example:

- Big screen TVs. There aren’t many things that we buy that encourage us to sit around the house as much those giant flat screens that tend to eat up an entire wall of our living rooms (or our “home theater rooms” for the more avid TV watchers out there.) TVs should be taxed at an increasingly higher rate as their screen size and picture quality increases. With the revenue generated from this tax, we could eliminate sales tax on things like treadmills and stationary bikes. This is what is known as “lifestyle engineering”, and America obviously needs a lot more of it.

- Couches. I can’t think of any piece of furniture in the house that encourages slothfulness as much as a comfy couch does. These things should be taxed so high that people can’t even afford them and are forced to sit in front of the TV on those hard wooden pews that used to be so popular in churches. You wouldn’t even make it half way through “Dancing with the Stars” before you had to get up and walk around.

- “Fat” clothes. Having reasonably-priced clothing readily available in very large sizes has made us all too comfortable with our expanding waist lines. If we had to pay an increasingly steep fee for our clothes every time we went up a size, we might put a little more thought into whether or not we could really afford to have a second helping of Grandma’s apple pie after Sunday dinner. “Sorry Granny, I can’t. I don’t make enough money to shop in the Big and Tall section.”