Germany Considering Charging Overweight People A “Fat” Tax. . . .

According to Allan Hall from the UK Telegraph:

"The question must be admitted whether the immense costs that, for example, arise from excessive consumption of food, can be permanently paid out of the consolidated health system," said Marco Wanderwitz, the conservative MP for the state of Saxony.

"I think it's sensible that people who knowingly live unhealthily carry a responsibility for it in a financial respect," said Mr Wanderwitz, who is also head of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats's group of young parliamentarians

"As with tobacco, we should tax the purchase of unhealthy consumer goods at a higher rate and pay that tax into the health system," he said.

Germany's health system is funded by a series of mandatory health insurance funds, all of which are reporting serious deficits as the system is overused.

Bild, the German newspaper, estimated that treatment for obesity-related illnesses cost Germany some £16 billion a year.

Recently the German Teachers' Association recommended weighing children in class each day and reporting the seriously overweight to social services, who would have the power to remove them to clinics.

Although opposition politicians blasted the "fat-tax" proposal, researchers at the Jacobs University in Bremen claimed its work proved that the majority of the public would back a tax on people whose unhealthy lifestyles landed them in hospital or under other medical care.

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According to the bsreport.com:

This stuff isn’t just happening in Germany. “Big Brother” is out of control all over the western world. It’s very tempting to tax other people’s vices, that is, until government gets around to taxing your vices. And they will. Already we’ve seen it with cigarettes and alcohol. Some states are considering fast food taxes, soda taxes, chocolate taxes, and salt taxes.

Where does it end? The fact is, it doesn’t end unless enough people decide that government doesn’t have the authority to control all aspects of our lives. If we allow politicians to tell us what we should eat, drink, think, how much exercise we should have, and how we should spend our time then we deserve what we get. Remember, politicians never willingly give up power once it’s attained–it has to be taken from them.

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I have argued for decades with the imbeciles that loved that the government intruded into the lives of smokers. . . .My argument has always been that what began with the smokers won't end until they come after something you enjoy. . . .