Leave Us Alone!

Three centuries ago, Czar Peter the Great banned Russian men from wearing beards.  His first method to enforce this ban was to slap a tax on beards.  (He also taxed glass, chimneys, and even dying!  If I recall correctly, it was called a "soul tax.")  He even personally shaved his generals.  Later, he sent his soldiers through the countryside to shave those remaining recalcitrant.

Taxes have often been a way for government not just to raise revenue, but to regulate trade and to influence people's consumption.  Check, for instance, what states have the highest and the lowest taxes on cigarettes.  I suppose such taxes are well-intentioned, but are still quite bothersome and sometimes dangerous.

Some cities in the US have enacted taxes on soda/pop.  (I know, I know.  In Michigan it's "pop," but my years in Massachusetts made me prefer "soda.")  First, such a tax is regressive, as are all taxes on food and beverages.  They hit lower incomes harder than upper incomes.  Chicago, NYC, and other places have found such levies to be very unpopular, to the point of near repeal.

The experience in Philadelphia, though, is instructive.  The soda tax there was assumed to raise more than $90 million dollars for the city's treasury, much of it earmarked for education.  Once again, government projections were off, way off.  About half of the projected revenue was realized.  But it gets worse.  After passing the tax, Pepsi has seen almost a 50% drop in business.  The 100 area Pepsi employees who are going to be laid off probably don't care a fig about the $45 million in revenues.  Canada Dry, too, has given employees notice that there will be layoffs.  I'm sure the additional municipal revenue doesn't excite them much, either.

What's happening isn't necessarily a decrease in consumption.  Philadelphians are just driving to neighboring cities where there is no tax and buying their Pepsi, Canada Dry, etc. there.

(Over the past decades, there has been a decrease in the consumption of pop--or soda or tonic or coke, generically, or soft drink or cold drink--in the US.  But that's because more and more people are turning to healthier drinks.)

Again, such taxes are always sugar-coated.  Oh, the doo-gooders (and I do mean doo) are helping us with our health.  The money will go to, say, the schools.  Who can oppose such things?  That is, who can oppose such things until the complete picture is unveiled?

And it always turns out like that.  Government, stay out of my life, our lives!  Don't try to dictate what I drink or eat or buy or......  I know what's good for me and what isn't.  Frankly, I still drink too much soda, both diet and regular, you know, the ones with high fructose corn syrup.  I know all about it, but it's my choice.  And it should be my choice, not some perhaps well-meaning, perhaps self-righteous politicians or government bureaucrats.

When I see such government overreach, I am reminded of Prohibition.  People, to get their alcohol, were purchasing and drinking anti-freeze, rubbing alcohol, formaldehyde, and even embalming fluid. To stop that, the federal government ordered such fluids to be denatured.  But instead of adding substances such as soap, which would merely make drinkers sick, mercury and strychnine were added.  Mercury and strychnine?  Aren't those poisons, poisons that kill?  One year, 11 thousand Americans died because of this.  The government reaction was, simply, "They shouldn't have been drinking in the first place."  That is, these Americans, who were engaging in an activity that just a year or two before was perfectly legal, an activity which in moderation is harmless, an activity that was a perfectly normal social activity for thousands of years all over the world, deserved to die.

Granted, a soda tax isn't quite as extreme.  But Prohibition provides a picture of what an unfettered government can and often will do.

Government, it has become expected, is supposed to "do something."  No, don't do anything or, rather, do very little.  Take the "obesity epidemic" as claimed by the CDC.  Supposedly, about 40% of all American adults are obese, not just overweight or fat, but obese.  Visually, I have no reason to doubt that.  But health and "obesity" are personal responsibilities, not government's.  Americans don't have an obesity problem; fat Americans have an obesity problem. 

But, of course, it's now standard for government to "do something."  Look at the school lunch programs.  Anecdotally at least, those healthy lunch programs are a massive failure.  Don't take my word for it, gleaned from articles and stories from school workers.  Kids throw away the carrot and celery sticks--and who wouldn't??????  Seriously, who reads the gov't-mandated "calorie counts" on the menus of restaurants?  Don't try to tell my you do.

All these food regulations are written by politicians and bureaucrats who have their own agendas.  They don't know you and me, other than we are the sources for the monies they fund their boondoggles.

And I've written about this before, but these same politicians and bureaucrats are responsible for cutting physical activity, physical education in our schools.  Sure, we may consume more calories than we did several decades ago, but I submit our problems with being fat stem more from an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. We aren't active enough.  We watch too much television and play too many video games.  We buy tractor lawn mowers (loud enough to resemble Boeing 747s!) and snow blowers instead of getting out and doing the chores ourselves, with our bodies.  And, as if to underscore the lack of importance of an active lifestyle, the doo-gooders (and I do mean "doo") cut physical education in the schools.  There's a lesson our students surely are learning well!  But, of course, phys ed isn't on the tests......

Yes, obesity is a problem.  It drives up costs for all of us, whether we are fat or not.  We all pay for it, in health insurance and hospital costs.  We get stuck behind fat people in the aisle of stores and can't pass them going up stairs.  We have to park farther away from our destinations because of handicap parking spaces reserved not only for those really needing them, but for obese people.  But it's not an American problem; it's not for government to once again stick in its ugly head and make it worse--and more expensive.  Let's let government leave us alone and make this a personal responsibility.

Yeah, I know, I know......