American Beat: Let's Hear It For A Fat Tax

Of course, the attack on Ortiz's "fat tax" is disingenuous. We already have special taxes on cigarettes and alcohol in hopes of discouraging widespread use of these deadly substances. Yet only a fringe group of militant anti-tax Libertarians (hey, some of my best friends are militant anti-tax Libertarians, but that doesn't mean I don't think they're wackos) would fail to see their value.

So if we can tax cancer sticks, why can't we attack obesity oils or treacherous trans fats? After all, the annual health-care costs associated with tobacco, according to the CDC, is $75 billion, compared with the $117 billion for obesity. To steal the Daily News's "us" and "them" rhetoric, the only reason "they" want to go after "your" Twinkie is because "your" obesity is costing "our" system billions of dollars a year.

That logic was lost on most of the newspapers in my state. A paper in Binghamton admitted that "in the case of cigarettes, the tax is a good idea," but then editorialized that a very similar tax on high fat foods was "out of control"--the equivalent of a "Government Gone Wild" video. The editorial went on to say that Ortiz's 1 percent tax--which the lawmaker also wants to apply to the video games and TV ads that keep children sedentary--would drive the economy "into ruin," an extremely unlikely prospect.

Clearly, it's difficult to have a substantive debate on this topic, given the short-attention spans and superficiality of the American media. I have a good deal of experience in this area (and not just because I have a short attention span and have been described by friends as superficial). Last year, I wrote a story about a California state legislator--also named Ortiz, but not related to Felix--who had proposed a one cent tax on sugar-sweetened soda pop.

That legislator, Deborah Ortiz, was turned into Public Enemy Number One by California's notoriously vocal anti-tax community. Every time Ortiz tried to cite the very same figures I cited above, she was shouted down and threatened. (Hey, you don't like her tax idea, fine, but are death threats really necessary because a lawmaker has proposed turning a 75-cent can of soda into a 76-cent can of soda?)

My favorite attack on Ortiz came from her Assembly counterpart, John Campbell (R-Irvine). "Where will this ever stop?" asked Campbell. "Are they going to tax the butter on my carrots because carrots are healthier without butter?" That remark put Campbell in my personal Knee Jerks Hall of Fame. There's just something so endearing about a lawmaker so repulsed by the notion that he might be eating something healthy that he needs to slather it with rendered cow fat just to get them down--and then feels self-righteous about it!