Fuming over the fun tax

Where do bad ideas come from?

The proposed soda tax, “iPod tax” and others announced by New York Gov. David Paterson mark a new low in using the tax code to govern our lives

Politicians have long had a fondness for sin taxes – levies on “bad” things like alcohol and tobacco. Such taxes enable pols to pocket your money while congratulating themselves for encouraging you to lead a healthier lifestyle.

But Paterson wants to tax good clean fun as well:

• Music downloads;
• Movie, concert and sports tickets;
• Cable and satellite TV;
• Massages, manicures, pedicures, haircuts and even gym memberships.

He also wants new taxes on taxis as well as buses. Beer as well as non-diet sodas. Higher taxes on clothes, gasoline and more. The grand total: 137 higher taxes.

The governor’s ideas actually are not new. Just bad. America has become fertile ground for bad ideas about how government should manage our lives.

One forerunner was a June 2000, article in the American Journal of Public Health, co-authored by a leader of the Ralph Nader-founded Center for Science in the Public Interest. As it noted, “foods high in calories, fat, or sugar [should] be subjected to special taxes.” It also proposed subsidies for “healthful foods, such as fruits and vegetables.”

Just imagine if multi-billion-dollar federal subsidies created a broccoli lobby as powerful as the ethanol lobby has become!

Government nagging about our health is often treated as justified because government now picks up about half of America’s health care tab. The rationale is that bureaucrats must tell us how to avoid becoming unhealthy burdens on the taxpayers.

There’s a pattern of how these nanny-state taxes come to fruition. These ideas often are:

• Planted by professional “do-gooders”;
• Nurtured by media that present the do-gooders’ claims as “fact”;
• Adopted by politicians who want money to spend (and also want the praise of media and do-gooders); and
• Nourished by special interests who see advantages for themselves.

Unless public outrage uproots bad ideas, they take root like noxious weeds. Many citizens accept the notion that these things are “for our own good,” plus that they will benefit from taxes on somebody else. If you rob (or tax) Peter to pay Paul, you can usually count on Paul’s support.

The environment for bad ideas is fertile because more Americans than ever before are reliant on government. The Heritage Foundation’s annual “Dependency Index” tracks this trend. It notes that 28 percent of American adults now pay no federal taxes and that dependence on government programs has more than doubled since 1980.

Those who pay nothing can nevertheless benefit when government raises taxes on others. In one sense, Gov. Paterson’s proposal will convert some non-taxpayers into taxpayers – but that doesn’t make his ideas sound. His clear motive is to protect big government.

His plan would increase welfare payments by 30 percent over a three-year period and also expand government’s role in providing health care. He would remove safeguards intended to prevent Medicaid fraud (such as ending requirements for face-to-face interviews and fingerprinting).

New York already spends far more on Medicaid than second-place California, even though the Golden State has almost twice as many people. With only 6 percent of America’s population, New York spends 15 percent of all Medicaid dollars.

Yet, Paterson announced, “We’ve made too many promises and unfortunately asked for too few sacrifices. We are going to have to change our culture as we know it.”

Some change.

Protecting the size of government – and those who depend on big government – is age old. Nor are music download taxes new. They’ve been adopted in Spain and France, attempted in Canada and Britain and even Tennessee, as well as California.

The creation of snack taxes also goes back at least to 1991, when California’s then-Gov. Pete Wilson suggested taxing junk food to help with that year’s budget crisis.

Controlling our diets has become politically correct. New York City has banned foods with trans fat. Chicago banned (then un-banned) foie gras. Los Angeles is trying a fast-food restaurant moratorium.

What’s next? Policing kids’ lunch boxes? Not funny. It’s actually happened in England. A British paper reported that the country’s anti-obesity strategy includes a healthy lunchbox policy. “If a packed lunch is deemed to contain too much fat and sugar, parents could be sent warning letters or their children’s meals confiscated.”

And if kids cannot escape the food police, neither can their best friend, Santa Claus. The U.S. Surgeon General told a Boston newspaper that Kris Kringle needs to slim down, to be a “good role model.” (“Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was snacking …”)

Is all this really necessary? After all, regardless of waistlines, Americans now have a life expectancy of 78 years – 30 years longer than a century ago. But that didn’t matter to the doctor who last year wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine, “Like global warming, the obesity epidemic is a looming crisis that requires action before all the scientific evidence is in.”

Once again, we’re told, it’s for our own good; so shut up and just accept it. Don’t open your mouth – unless of course it’s for a carrot.

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