Obesity rates are climbing among U.S. children and New Mexico thinks it has a solution: a 1 per cent tax on video games and TV that will finance outdoor education programs. The tax will no doubt anger high-tech shoppers who don’t have kids.
Digital Journal — Would you pay a 1 per cent tax on televisions and video games to help fund outdoor activities for children? It’s a question on the minds of New Mexico citizens, who heard news this week about State Representative Gail Chasey (D-Albuquerque) sponsoring a bill that would tax TVs, video games and gaming equipment. The fund would help establish outdoor activities to fight obesity among kids.
The bill — cheekily titled “Leave No Child Inside” — is supported by 35 diverse coalitions, including environmental group The Sierra Club.
According to a release obtained by DigitalJournal.com, Sierra Club’s Building Bridges to the Outdoors state coordinator Michael Casaus said, “This small investment towards improving our children’s education and health will go a long way in developing responsible stewards of the environment and more productive members of our communities.”
Money generated by the introduced bill’s tax would be used to develop outdoor education programs; to create teaching materials for these initiatives; to provide transportation for children to enjoy outdoor events; and to increase nature-oriented physical activity programs for kids. The Sierra Club estimated the bill will raise more than $4 million annually.
Proponents of the bill say the 1 per cent tax will bring outdoor programs to more kids, thus fighting obesity and reducing long-term health care costs down the road. Marsha McMurray-Avila, Executive Director of the New Mexico Public Health Association, said in the released statement:
Children need healthy stimulation and natural learning environments in order to grow into physically and mentally healthy adults. Increasing children’s access to the out-of-doors is a common sense and time-honored approach to providing that stimulation.
The New Mexican bill is side kicked with a fact sheet explaining the link between passive entertainment and obesity. The release states that the average New Mexico kid spends more time watching TV than in school. Studies show a link between “screen time” (watching television or playing video games) and childhood obesity and attention deficit disorders.
But Leave No Child Inside is enabling the government to become a kid’s parent. Politicians are saying, “Mom and Dad, you can’t handle your kids and we think we can do it better. Well. At least we can show them the outdoors.”
There is a pompous attitude to this tax; it gives the impression that anyone who buys video games or TV sets is plonking their kids on the couch and shutting them off from all exercise and outdoor activity.
And what about the people who don’t have children but still want to buy a TV or video game console? Critics will no doubt be up in arms about paying extra because someone else’s kid is overweight.
In theory, this bill is altruistic: it collects money for outdoor education initiatives that obviously do only good for the electorate. But Leave No Child Inside places governmental authority over our lives in a way that should upset any libertarian.
It’s fashionable to discriminate against technology as obesity enablers, but it’s also close-minded to target this sector with any type of tax. Instead, we should turn our attention to the root cause for today’s fat-belly epidemic.
