NY Times Food Writer Mark Bittman Wants Big Government to 'Fix' Your Diet with Higher Taxes
New York Times food writer (and food scold) Mark Bittman made the front of the Sunday Review with his latest modest proposal, the 2,100-word “Bad Food? Tax It.”
(In a March 29 column, Bittman self-righteously announced a fast on behalf of the poor against proposed G.O.P. budget cuts: “These supposedly deficit-reducing cuts -- they’d barely make a dent -- will quite literally cause more people to starve to death, go to bed hungry or live more miserably than are doing so now.”)
Bittman’s latest melodramatic bid as head of the food police involves raising taxes to change poor people’s eating habits to save “tens of millions of lives” and “tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars in health care costs.”
Yet the food industry appears incapable of marketing healthier foods. And whether its leaders are confused or just stalling doesn’t matter, because the fixes are not really their problem. Their mission is not public health but profit, so they’ll continue to sell the health-damaging food that’s most profitable, until the market or another force skews things otherwise. That “other force” should be the federal government, fulfilling its role as an agent of the public good and establishing a bold national fix.
His solution? “Tax things like soda, French fries, doughnuts and hyperprocessed snacks.” The fulls-spread article is beefed up with lots of charts and graphics on the wonders of what “a small federal tax could do.”
This program would, of course, upset the processed food industry. Oh well. It would also bug those who might resent paying more for soda and chips and argue that their right to eat whatever they wanted was being breached. But public health is the role of the government, and our diet is right up there with any other public responsibility you can name, from water treatment to mass transit.
Bittman cavalierly dismissed freedom arguments:
Forcing sales of junk food down through taxes isn’t ideal. First off, we’ll have to listen to nanny-state arguments, which can be countered by the acceptance of the anti-tobacco movement as well as a dozen other successful public health measures...
Besides the objectionable use of government power to regulate people’s eating habits, there is little evidence such a program would even work. A 2010 Cato Institute study found no evidence linking soda consumption to obesity, and found that “fat taxes” are ineffective, even counterproductive, when it comes to actually reducing snack consumption.
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Comments
If Bittman offered some statistics on deaths by starvation . . .
Submitted by Galvanic on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 2:48pm.
. . . in America, I might listen to his argument. But he doesn't, because it's so insignificant, CDC doesn't appear to track it. The handful that are attributable to starvation are due to eating disorders like anorexia nervosa.
As was written in the NB commentary, there is no reason for children in the US to actually starve to death. Bittman needs to post evidence.
Yet another liberal/commie
Submitted by Soldat44 on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 3:18pm.
Yet another liberal/commie that wants to run my life.
Don't we have an obesity epidemic?
Submitted by Radical1979 on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 3:24pm.
It'll take a while for people to starve.
Aurgula-sparing fast
Submitted by StarAZ on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 3:35pm.
That ought to teach us.
Having watched Bittman on PBS
Submitted by felizagain on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 3:42pm.
Having watched Bittman on PBS (on my tax dollars no less), I've watched what this guy eats. Yes, he has lost weight over the past few years. But, this is the same guy who shovels cheese, Spanish ham, lobster, wine, beer, chorizo, oysters, desserts, into his mouth for pay.....and he's whining about the govt. not taxing food and companies enough to help us from overfeeding ourselves! There are not too many Americans unaware of what makes them fat or unhealthy. Like smoking, we tend to just do it....anyway, in spite of, or ignoring the result. I love it. The guy who traveled with portly, ok, well, fat, Mario Batalli for PBS...is telling us to pay up or watch out re: food. The first thing the GOP should go after and cut is federal funding for PBS. My local PBS station in OC now plays Al Jazeera News for hours a day, Democracy Now, Tavis, Chris, etc. Save millions, cut them off of the federal dole. Doesn't PBS make enough off of sales of Sesame Street and Blue's Clues and Thomas the Train merchandise?
We don't need to tax more on foods. They are already taxed Mark. The companies pay income tax, corporate tax, sales tax, city, county, state, and federal tax. The store that sells it pays taxes. For all of the billions spent in Los Angeles since the Watts Riots - you know how many real markets exist in the 40 mile area known as Central LA - one. Liquor stores, over 250. Where are the do good liberals? Someone bankroll a few Sprouts and Bristol Farms and Whole Foods and Pavillions in Central LA.
I don't see Spielberg or Hanks or Bittman or Battali or Rob Reiner putting in the funds for that sort of endeavor.....
And they wonder...
Submitted by jdripper on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 3:42pm.
why I gave up my subscription to the New York Times. For anyone who remembers it got so bad that they were bashing President Bush even in some of the recipes they had in their Sunday paper.
Jack
Do shut up, sir.
Submitted by Ed Gregory on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 3:44pm.
"But public health is the role of the government, and our diet is right up there with any other public responsibility you can name, from water treatment to mass transit."
Do you allow the government to dictate what you eat, Mr. Bittman? No? Then shut up. Because until you're willing to subject yourself to the wisdom of the state with regard to food, don't expect others to.
I agree. He could lower regional temperatures...
Submitted by drsamherman on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 4:49pm.
...just by stopping the flow of hot air coming out of his gaping pie hole.
So the argument naturally
Submitted by Satchmo on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 4:08pm.
So the argument naturally fails for food and tobacco and its premises are rightly ridiculed, but when it comes to drugs and alcohol, the same argument and premises are valid.
Satchmo = Troll
Submitted by The Vet on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 9:22pm.
A very dense troll that can't see the writing on the wall.
Ignore this troll.
No they are not.
Submitted by redmike on Wed, 07/27/2011 - 4:39pm.
No they are not.
Well they're very often the
Submitted by Satchmo on Wed, 07/27/2011 - 4:57pm.
Well they're very often the same arguments used for the prohibition of drugs and alcohol, and they've even been used as arguments by members here.
I'm not surprised...
Submitted by shooter on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 5:02pm.
Liberals think that taxes solve everything.
_________________________________________
"An armed society is a polite society" -- Robert A. Heinlein
Mark Bittman,
Submitted by Trix Rabbit on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 10:53pm.
a hand-wringing milksop who has grown fat from the profits of PBS can help us plebeian, recalcitrant, and fat Americans by changing the format of his show and columns by offering:
1) recipes that only involve alfalfa sprouts, yeast, and bean paste.
2) the great and wonderful delicacies of geophagy. After all dirt is cheap, plentiful, and non-fattening.
For the MSM: In your pomp and all your glory, you're a poorer man than me. As you lick the boots of death born out of fear.
Ian Anderson "Wind up"