Read an op-ed today in last week's Twin Cities Business Journal from Randy Zarecki, Chief Fitness Officer for the Fitness Together chain of workout facilities. In the article he proposes administering a Fat Tax to pay for a form of national healthcare policy.

This Fat Tax would be placed on all foods--both restaurant and grocery store--that is high in the fats and sugars that make us obese and unhealthy leading to a whole host of illnesses, diseases and injuries. He equates this Fat Tax to the sin taxes on liquor and tobacco.

I am totally with him, despite the fact that it could cost me a pretty penny over my life time. I am always for people paying for those things that they use or that affect them. A gasoline tax to pay solely for roads and environmental clean up makes a lot of sense--but not on top of current taxes, in place of. A rent tax for families with children in public schools makes sense to help property owners pay for the school district operation in their community. And a sales tax on goods makes sense because it gives the normal person the option of not paying it, but not buying unnecessary goods.

While I stump for the Fat Tax, I also plead lawmakers for lower taxes as the common person and especially the upper class person pay far too much of their earnings on taxes. Encourage further support to nonprofits, eliminate a majority of entitlement programs to the extent they provide services, eliminate needless spending on things like making sure a professional athlete gets a visa or congressional hearings on drug use in Major League Baseball. Spend less money in government operations and campaigns and more money on those people and services that only a government can provide, and that are done efficiently. I plead for a redirect of taxes so that those who use the products of the services are paying for them. I am more than happy to pay for roads and national health insurance, if I didn't have to pay for a whole host of other services that are less reasonable for goverment to provide.

And with the Fat Tax, we could sit at the State Fair and people watch, saying things like, "that guy must pay an awful lot of tax at restuarants and the grocery store..."