Taxation for Inflation

Boy, Hank Williams Jr. has really let himself go.

Yesterday marked the end of August, and also wrapped up the Big Think’s “Month of Thinking Dangerously” series.  Over the course of 31 days, the site posed questions and possible solutions on topics ranging from legalizing all drugs, to changing weather patterns with the aid of lasers.  Yesterday’s final big idea centered around a growing problem in the United States, both literally and figuratively.  I’m talking about our bloated brethren across the country who think exer-cise is some new meal deal upgrade at McDonald’s that comes with a bucket of fries and 132 oz. soda.  Writer Andrew McDermott explores one option to curb their collective appetites in the form of a fat fee, or butterball bill if you will.  This doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea, especially when you consider the fact that there are starving people everywhere, and we have a sanctioned competitive eating organization.  But if I had to guess, I’m betting this taxation with food inhalation wouldn’t go over too well with many of the Tea Party members.

If Americans were paid to eat less and exercise more they might be motivated to lose some weight—and save us a bundle on health care—says Dr. Barry M. Popkin, director of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Interdisciplinary Center for Obesity.

According to a report released by the Center for Disease Control this month, 26.7% Americans are obese and they’re only getting fatter. “The statistics have become rote, but consider that people in their 50s are about 20 pounds heavier on average than 50-somethings were in the late 1970s,” wrote economics journalist David Leonhardt…”As a convenient point of reference, a typical car tire weighs 20 pounds.”

Obesity is defined by having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of over 30…By state, obesity prevalence ranges from 18.6% in Colorado to 34.4% in Mississippi…To make matters worse, these rates rely on self-reported height and weight data, which likely produces underestimates because both men and women tend to overestimate their height and women tend to underestimate their weight.

“From a societal standpoint, if a third to a half of Americans weren’t so fat, the idea of the government providing tax incentives for the obese to eat less and exercise more wouldn’t be so controversial,” Dr. Popkin told Big Think, “In 1955, if you’d thought about taxing cigarettes you would have been run off the planet.”

Popkin proposes two possible ways of using taxes to motivate people to lose weight. His first policy suggestion is to demand that anyone with a BMI greater than 30 who receives Medicare, Medicaid or government administered health care pay a fee if they are unwilling to prove they’ve undertaken a few predetermined exercise activities or show that they are consciously watching what they consume. Popkin admits that taxing bad behavior is different and more challenging than placing a tax on consumers products like cigarettes and alcohol, but he says there are technologies available that could enable the government to monitor obese people’s diets and exercise.

“We have devices that we could put on your throat that could measure your swallows,” Popkin explains. “We have devices now to measure how much you move, so we can see when people are engaged in activity like walking or jogging. He even suggests that obese people could wear ankle bracelets or collars similar to those used to monitor DUI felons and people on probation to prove that despite their high BMI, they’re active and eating properly. “If Americans are going to be serious about losing weight,” says Popkin, “then they need something that’s serious.”

If the idea of asking obese people to prove that they’re exercising and eating well, or else face a tax, sounds far too Orwellian, Popkin’s second suggestion is to make all Americans pay an additional flat-tax of, say, $100 a person per year, to build a pool of money which is then returned to people who either have a BMI lower than 30 or have somehow proven that they’re dieting and exercising. Popkin points to corporate weight-loss programs, in which employees are rewarded with cash for partaking in exercising, dieting, and smoking-cessation programs, as an example of how there are already versions of what might be considered a “fat tax” being administered not just in America, but around the globe.

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