Every
single classical liberal / libertarian and Austrian school economist could have told the
Danish government this would have been exactly the result from a fat tax:
The Danish government has said it intends to abolish a tax on foods which are high in saturated fats. … authorities said the tax had inflated food prices and put Danish jobs at risk. … The ministry said one of the effects of the fat tax was that some Danes had begun crossing the border into Germany to stock up on food there.
What
does it say about politicians who think they are somehow qualified to run our
lives for us that they still can’t figure this basic stuff out. Quite apart
from the philosophical fascism it connotes, anathema to Western classical
liberalism.
Every
politician please take note: you have no right to interfere in the lifestyle
choices of individuals. You have no right to put the iron fist of state into
the voluntary market transactions of consenting adults. None. We make our own
choices far better than you can. And if you are justifying a fat tax like this
to save taxpayer money in the public health system, then that is actually the justification
of a private health system where we take the responsibility of our own lives.
The moment you turned your attention from the only rightful role of state,
protecting individuals from each other, to protecting individuals from
themselves, you turned our social democracies into social(alist) democracies, that
now careen us down the road to our serfdom.
We
are not children.
Please. Please. Just. Go. Away.
…
And in other hilarious news, as economist Don Boudreaux points out, in a
measure impossible to spoof, Czar Bloomberg of New York has banned food
donations to the homeless, because the City officials haven’t the resources ‘to inspect donated foods to ensure that the
fat, salt, and fiber contents of these foods meet the Mayor’s exacting standards.
So no donating food to hungry New Yorkers!’
Ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Right,
thank God it’s Sunday, where’s that bottle, before the excise tax puts vineyards out as well …
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