America is fat. We are a nation of belt-stretching, chair-breaking cows. Don’t believe me? Take a good long look at the people around you next time you’re at Denny’s, the grocery store or the $1.50 show at Gateway.
Or, if you prefer more scientific evidence, take a gander at this: According to a Harris Poll released last week, an astonishing 80 percent of Americans over the age of 25 are overweight. That’s up from 64 percent in 1990 and 58 percent in 1983.
So what? This means not very many people are going hungry. Better to have a few
extra pounds than a few too little, right?
Not according to United States Surgeon General David Satcher, who says obesity is reaching “epidemic proportions.” Being overweight is a cause of type-2 diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, heart disease, stroke, cancer, gallbladder disease, asthma, osteoarthritis, depression and sleep apnea, among other things; is killing some 300,000 people and is costing the United States $117 billion each year. Satcher thinks obesity will soon cause as much preventable death and disease as smoking cigarettes.
Hum. Oregon is currently in the midst of a budget crisis. One proposed solution is Gov. John Kitzhaber’s “sin tax” package, which would increase taxes on already grossly overtaxed tobacco and alcohol products. The most recent attempt was voted down in the Oregon House of Representatives, but another will likely come soon.

Now I haven’t been to Sunday school in a while, but — if I remember correctly — gluttony is a sin, and a mortal one at that. I don’t recall any mention of tobacco in the Bible.
Oregon’s tax on the sale of cigarettes is 68 cents a pack. Oregon’s tax on the sale of Twinkies? Nothing.
The very same Harris Poll said 23 percent of Americans smoke. That’s down from 26 percent in 1990 and 30 percent in 1983.
So, to balance the budget, politicians want to tax the 23 percent of the population already being taxed. Call me crazy, but why not tax that big, fat 80 percent of the population instead? Wouldn’t that raise revenue a whole lot faster? I doubt Hostess is a big campaign contributor, so House Republicans might even pass my “Twinkie Tax.” And, revenue aside, isn’t a public health problem affecting 80 percent of the population a little more pressing than a problem affecting 23 percent?
If you don’t like that solution, how about this: Get overweight people to smoke. Cigarettes do keep you thin. My score on the Body Mass Index (the system used to measure obesity) is 19, a full six points below the “overweight” barrier. Now look at those Harris Poll statistics again. Do you see the correlation? As smoking levels in America dropped, the number of overweight people rose. So I say let the obese light up. And 68 cents a pack times 80 percent of the population equals more supplemental income than the state could possibly use. No more budget cuts or school closings, just a lot of thin, satisfied, cool-looking corpses.
After all, a corpse is a corpse, whether it got that way by eating too much or smoking too much. And thin corpses take up less room than fat ones. That solves our revenue problem and our obesity problem, and it economizes land use to boot. We’d still have smoking to deal with, but I can live with that.