Fat Tax

Speaking of Yglesias, his post on Food Policy missed a chance to really hit home how you have to explain shit like this to normal Americans. Nobody cares about "oh, we'll be healthier" blah blah blah. But if you explain that fat people ARE COSTING YOU MONEY, they might listen. We drag on your cars, we add weight on your bridges, etc etc. And it's people like ME who spend a lifetime eating the cheap, corn-syrup crap they give us, get fatter and fatter, and then after a few decades end up needing massive medical attention, of which who pays for? YOU! Chopping off my limbs due to diabetes at about $100,000 a pop sure sounds a lot more expensive than forcing me to go for a checkup once a year for $10 and churning out HEALTHY food instead of an endless supply of corn syrup and soda syrup. We can talk about "personal choices" et al til the cows come home, but until you explain to people that it can conceivably cost them LESS in the long run doing it the "fat tax" way, nobody will care.