As our national waistline inflates faster than the Weimar Republic's fiat currency, Americans aggressively pursue a cure for the obesity epidemic. Looking for the easy way out, our overweight compatriots are willing to try anything, from eating nothing but grapefruit to buying any book with the words "Lose Weight" in the title. Our undying desire to slim down, compounded by supreme gullibility, makes the legendary quest for the fountain of youth look promising by comparison. But, as a law of nature, the equation for losing weight has been and always will be: consume fewer calories than you expend. While the "consume fewer calories" part of the remedy is purely a matter of will and determination, the expenditure of calories requires actual physical effort, something today's automobile-centric American avoids at all costs. Parking as far one can from the mall entrance in order to get in an extra 150 yards of waddling before reaching the Promised Land (aka, the food court) is not sufficient. In order to shed pounds, one must partake of vigorous physical exercise.
Running is one exercise that will generally get the job done. Aside from helping one lose weight, running also improves the cardiovascular system, strengthens leg muscles and improves one's emotional state. Unfortunately, the benefits of running come at a cost. For anyone who has embarked on a serious running regimen, just uttering the words "plantar fasciitis" is enough to provoke a wince. Plantar fasciitis is a painful condition arising when a ligament, the plantar fascia, becomes inflamed. Preventive measures abound and, if one is able to detect the condition in its early stages, a treatment as simple as rolling the sole of one's foot on a tennis ball will often suffice. However, the combination of foregoing high calorie foods and sticking to a serious running regimen can be highly demanding. For those who responsibly choose to run to get in shape, I humbly propose the following: In order to stomp out (no pun intended) plantar fasciitis, we will hereby put a tax on all running shoes of $5/pair. By so doing, we will discourage some people from running entirely and thereby avoid the dreaded plantar fasciitis. For those who are stubborn enough not to heed this economic incentive, we will take all monies raised to fund a state-run plantar fasciitis rehabilitation center. In the future the alleviation of plantar fasciitis will become the purview of the state. For those who run responsibly and take precautionary measures when they sense the onset of plantar fasciitis, they will have the peace of mind of knowing that they are funding the recuperation of their fellow citizens who refuse to take any responsibility for their own condition. Eventually, we will have lots of runners, no plantar fasciitis, and more tax revenues than we originally started with!
Although my proposed solution to foot pain borders on the insane, the state of New Jersey is planning to embark on exactly that path in its treatment of drug and alcohol addiction. A New Jersey-based group called "Parent to Parent" is urging the state legislature to impose a five cent per gallon tax on alcohol to fund the state's rehabilitation programs. The demon alcohol is always to blame. From the temperance movement earlier in our country's history to the Eighteenth Amendment, do-gooders have repeatedly vilified alcohol and its users in order to gain political power. First it was an attempt to control Catholic immigrants from Ireland and southeastern Europe in the 19th Century. Now it is a campaign against those who enjoy a casual beer since the drinker is always a pariah in the mind of the teetotaler, and legislation like this will just drive home the point. Why the state of New Jersey is in the business of addiction rehabilitation goes unremarked but it should not surprise us since both the Federal constitution and those of the states have become impotent in circumscribing the reach of government.
For residents of New Jersey who drink responsibly, this tax will be an involuntary charitable contribution (and not tax deductible) that they could have otherwise made to the charity of their choice. And to think that some of them might have made such a donation to a charity dealing with the problems of addiction is where this proposed legislation is particularly harmful and pernicious. No one likes to make donations to charities that squander their resources or are ineffective in assisting those they endeavor to help. In choosing among several charities soliciting donations, donors will try to determine which one has the best design and track record. The do-gooders now pestering the state of New Jersey are proposing that we take away this simple market check and fund a program whose results will be – in this case only intentions matter. Not only do the do-gooders desire to self-righteously punish those who enjoy alcohol. Unfortunately, they will inadvertently also punish those who over imbibe by subjecting them to a one-size-fits-none, state-run, monopoly rehabilitation provider. Any incentive for private parties to test or implement rehabilitation methods will disappear as the state's funding for this unconstitutional activity usurps the market in rehabilitative charities. Ultimately rehabilitation will be like the DMV – long lines and snarling employees whose primary function is to punch the clock. So much for helping those in need.
Although this legislation is still only a proposal, things do not look good for Bruce Springsteen, blue-haired gamblers in Atlantic City or the boys at Tony Soprano's Bada-Bing. In this case, a self-righteous and focused group attacks an "evil" activity practiced, and more importantly, enjoyed, diffusely. Most of us like to drink liquor. None of us will cry if we have to pay a nickel more to do so. But each of those nickels goes into only one piggy bank and eventually they start to add up. Over time the state will marshal those nickels to create a perpetual bureaucracy which will inevitably "forget" its reason for coming into existence (to cure addiction remember?) but never lose its thirst for stealing private wealth as it grows like an untended weed garden. Left in the dust will be those who, for whatever reason, cannot control their addictions, while the rest of us cough up nickels for all eternity. Residents of New Jersey will now have a reason to drive the short distance into New York to buy their alcohol. They should wave to New Yorkers driving out to New Jersey to buy their clothes tax-free. The conspiracist in me says this may all just be a head fake to increase revenues from tolls on the bridges and tunnels connecting New York and New Jersey. Sadly, in either case the state wins.
February 25, 2006
