A 'fat tax' in Motown

Could Detroit's hunger for revenue set a precedent for taxing fast food?

The city's mayor, Kwame Kirkpatrick, is considering adding a two per cent tax to food bought from fast-food joints. Detroit is $300million in debt and its capacity to raise money by other means is severely limited. Kirkpatrick insists that the move is primarily to balance the books, but there's no doubt that penalising people for eating 'junk' food is an easy thing to sell at the moment. Detroit was named America's fattest city in 2004 by Men's Health magazine, and there are plenty of people involved in public health who would like to see such a tax implemented. Not many salads get labelled as fast food - this is a 'fat tax' in all but name.

Yet, as recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed, the problem of obesity has been greatly overstated. A tax on fast food is unlikely to have much effect on public health. But the biggest problem with this plan is that it effectively targets those who make the 'wrong choices'. If you want to sit down in a restaurant that has waiter service, you're unlikely to be penalised for choosing chips. But if you like fast food, a particularly popular choice for those on low incomes, you'll be hit in the pocket.

This particular initiative may be of little practical consequence, but it sets an unwelcome precedent for the state to influence what you eat.

Detroit ponders fast-food tax for extra cash, USA Today, 8 May 2005