A Novel Idea: The Fat-Gas Tax

The Scrivener calls it “the new tax that can save America.” Now how cool is that?

He says, “You’ve heard about the fat tax and the gas tax…”

Now he's come up with a way to bundle them and gouge collect more tax money while improving our health and raising more even funds to throw at programs that don’t work.

This is the deal:

the Fat-Gas Tax is a variable rate gasoline tax determined by Body Mass Index on an individual basis. You pay for your gasoline purchase by debit or credit card and the tax is added automatically.

Imagine a simple, single tax that can help avert global warming, de-fund Arab terrorists, save scarce natural resources, reduce pollution AND remedy the government’s approaching funding crisis for Medicare (by heading off the coming diabetes epidemic, etc.) … save private individuals billions of dollars of medical costs from avoided heart attacks and strokes and blood pressure medication prescriptions … make the general population lean and good looking … and improve your sex life too! That’s the Fat-Gas Tax.

Scrivener says these are the reasons we want the Fat-Gas Tax:
- - - - - - - - -

[1] A gas tax is far more effective at promoting fuel savings than are CAFE auto miles-per-gallon standards -- which drive up the price of new cars, deprive people of cars they want to drive…etc.

[…]

[2] A fat tax is both far more effective and fair at reducing obesity than are other taxes enacted for the purpose on everything but body fat. (Why should a lean long-distance runner pay a penalty tax when enjoying the occasional Monster Thickburger -- and why should honest, hard-working Hardees’ employees be penalized for selling Thickburgers to the lean-and-fit -- just because other people are too lazy to put down the box of Oreos, get up off the couch and take a walk to the gym?)

The Fat-Gas Tax combines, compounds, the superiority of both taxes.

Please read the rest of his account, including in what ways McCain, Obama, and Congress will use the resulting revenues.

This idea has real possibilities. We could start bundling other kinds of behaviors that socialists don’t like and then proceed to tax them to death….well, not to death, just into the black market - which is where much of New York City buys its tobacco now that the tax on them is so high.

Note for those who don’t get irony: The Scrivener isn’t serious…I don’t think he is…

Besides, the Processed Food Industry would buy him a pair of cement shoes if they thought this had any hope of seeing daylight. So would mommies like this one, from the Manchester Evening News:

A mum who feeds her 18-month-old baby chips for most meals has been warned she is putting her child’s health at risk.

Angela Boswell’s daughter Courtney was 10lbs 9oz when she was born in December 2006.

But after being fed a fatty, high-salt diet of chips, chocolate and crisps she has rocketed to 30lbs - the size of an average four-year-old.

Courtney is so big that she will star in the ITV show Britain’s Biggest Babies next week.

And the footage will show her scoffing a large portion of chips, which she can polish off in just ten minutes.

Now mum Angela, 33, of Clayton, has been warned by top dieticians that her child is at a worrying weight which could lead to health problems in later life.

"I’ve tried giving her healthy food but she won’t eat it. She will eat a bit of what we’re having, say spaghetti Bolognese, and I gave her some mashed potato the other day and she had a massive bowl of it. She might have a banana sometimes or yoghurt, but she won’t touch vegetables - she picks them up and throws them."

“We don’t have any big people in our family, if there were I’d be more concerned, but the other kids have had similar diets and been fine. She’s a very healthy baby and it’s not often she gets ill.”

At one-years-old, Courtney was 25lbs, and though she hasn’t been weighed recently, she is thought to be at least 30 lbs. Her favourite foods are chips with salt and vinegar, chocolate, Coca-Cola, crisps and cereal.

A diet for a princess.

What do you think this child would eat in a chips-free environment? She'd eat something else eventually, though one would need earplugs and true grit to get to that point. That's why children are small and we're big.

This child is burdened with a clueless mom who's obviously had her spine removed, but even at 18 months you have to play the hand you're dealt, hmmm?


Hat tip: The [Never-Ending] Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid