Daily Archives: 14 April 2011

The Philosophical Hypocrisy of a Fat Tax

open quoteHere’s a letter to the Los Angeles Times:

You advocate a “fat tax” on grounds that it’ll discourage people from acting in ways that make them unhealthy (“Should there be a ‘fat tax’?” April 11).

Overlook here such a tax’s merits or demerits. It’s curious that you accept without question the proposition that raising taxes on ‘unhealthy-lifestyle’ activities will significantly turn people away from unhealthy-lifestyle activities, while (judging from your editorials over the years) you reject without question the proposition that raising taxes on income-earning activities will significantly turn people away from income-earning activities.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

In the mid-1990s I was informed by a professor of philosophy – tenured at a major university – that anyone who believes that even a marginal income-tax rate as high as 94 percent has a significant negative effect on people’s willingness to work to earn taxable income is “brainwashed.”close quote (Read more from cafehayek.com)

Earth Friendly and People Hostile

open quoteDear Sirs: There should be a special place in Purgatory for the environmentalists and the politicians who pander to them. Both camps oppose the extraction of oil from Mother Earth on Alaska’s North Slope (just one example) and provide tax breaks, subsidies, and mandates for using food in its place, with the result that millions will starve. This is just one example of the blindness and callousness of the environmental activists to the consequences of their actions. Every economic intervention means that people are prevented from using their own resources to meet those needs most urgently desired. The free market with money prices is the road to prosperity, which includes both food and fuel. Any and all interventions which disrupt the free market will result in lower prosperity and, as this article so aptly illustrates, occasionally disaster. Patrick Barron close quote (Read more from patrickbarron.blogspot.com)