Maine Lawmakers to Voters: 'Drop Dead'

What do you do if you're a member of the political class and you're enamored with a tax that voters have decisively nixed in a referendum? No sweat — you bide your time for a while after the tax is democratically abolished, and then you simply bring it back.

That's what Maine lawmakers intend to do with the hated snack tax, which Mainers, after a multi-year fight, managed to repeal in April 2000. Local politicians' shameless efforts at reinstatement are just part of why I find this a baffling — and admittedly, infuriating — little episode.

Consider that there seems to be no reason for the tax other than Maine's budget squeeze. I mean, why tax snacks? Why not place a tax levy on — I don't know — rainwater? (Oops, I forgot, Maine legislators already did that.)

I'll tell you why politicians believe it's O.K. to tax snacks: because they know better what's good for you than you do. Because they believe they have the right to control what you put into your body. Because snack foods are supposedly 'unhealthy' (never mind, apparently, that even water, when not consumed in moderation, can wreck your health). In short, the snack tax is really a sin tax, and if our masters in Augusta can tax the hell out of tobacco, hey, why wouldn't they tax the hell out of apple strudels and Hershey bars (even after we've explicitly told them, in a democratic referendum, not to)?

Not that this brand of social engineering, while sure to fatten the state's coffers, is likely to reduce actual waistlines. When researchers at Texas State University looked for a positive correlation between Maine's snack tax and the populace's obesity rate, they came up empty.

[T]he findings did not provide any significant results for independent variables that could help identify and interpret a relationship between the snack tax and obesity rates for Maine.

In other words, if there was an effect, it could not be detected, much less measured. That's despite the fact that the snack tax had been in effect for almost a decade, and that with a population of more than a million, there should have been a wealth of data proving that the tax led to slimmer, healthier people.

If the snack tax returns, Mainers are sure to find themselves baffled by the same fiscal requirements that understandably confused them all through the 90's. Take a look at that picture. Can you guess which of these two products will again be subject to taxation? If the new law is like the old one, it's the product on the right. That's right: regular raisins won't be taxed, but yogurt-covered raisins will be. An English muffin won't be taxed either, but a blueberry muffin will be. Potatoes? Not taxed, but if they're going to be used to make potato chips, strike that, they're getting taxed after all.

Is it not a disservice to logic to reintroduce such a mockery of a law?

And another thing: Lawmakers ought to remind themselves that there is a lot of quiet poverty in rural Maine. As is the case with special taxes levied on another public-health bugaboo, fast food, a snack tax will disproportionately affect the people who are economically hanging on by their fingernails.

"No one in Maine should do one thing that would increase the cost of food, period," said Brenda Davis of the Crossroads Food Pantry in Old Town.

Seems elementary enough — just not for the tax-anything, totalitarian-minded obstructionists and saboteurs who somehow fancy themselves our 'representatives.'