The city of Detroit is facing a $300 million shortfall. In order to increase the city’s revenues, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick came up with a solution to add at least $17 million a year to the city’s coffers. Kilpatrick is proposing a 2 per cent "fast food" tax. according to the mayor, adding a nickel to the cost of a Big Mac will not create a burden to his city’s citizens who now already pay a sales tax of 6 per cent on restaurant meals.
Criticism of the proposed tax has been swift. Many people complained that young children, the poor and seniors; the ones who rely more on lower priced fast food restaurants would bear the brunt of the new tax. Owners and operators of fast food restaurants criticized the proposal because their eateries were being singled out for the increased cost of restaurant meals. and although McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King come quickly to mind whenever fast food is mentioned, it is not always easy to determine exactly which establishments actually qualify as fast food restaurants. The criticisms are all valid and the proposed tax increase that has to be voted upon by the city’s residents and passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature may never see the light of day.
Some of the critics refer to the fast food tax as a "fat tax"; but it isn’t. The tax will attach not to the type of food but to the type of restaurant that the food is sold in. The 2 per cent tax will apply to all items that are sold in fast food establishments including salads, milk and juice. It is this nature of the proposed legislation that differentiates it from the junk food taxes that have been imposed in other jurisdictions.
Mayor Kilpatrick’s fast food tax proposal, as unfair as it might be, is refreshingly honest. By singling out toddlers, seniors and the poor, he isn’t even making a pretext of taxing the rich. Usually politicians make the point of saying that they taxing the rich when in fact they are taxing the overtaxed middle class and those with lower income levels. No, the Detroit mayor obviously understands who are the major consumers of fast foods and is upfront in his desire to bring in more money, a nickel at a time.
and why is the city of Detroit imposing this tax? Kilpatrick’s has not come out with the spin that he’s doing it as some type of war on obesity or to save lives or to reduce the demand on scarce medical resources. He’s practically come right out and said that he wants all those nickels from seniors and the poor because the city’s finances are in the hole and needs the money. What a guy!
Kwame Kilpatrick has shown a degree of honesty that those of us on the other side of the ambassador Bridge will never get to see, at least in the forseeable future. This type of tax, if imposed, would be imposed by the province and not by a local municipality, for which those of us living in Toronto should be extremely grateful for. and let’s face it; hell will freeze over before Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty would ever say that he’s imposing a new tax or increasing a current one, simply because his government can’t stop spending and needs the bucks.
If Dalton wanted to impose the same type of tax, he would become patronizing. He would play the health care card to explain that taxing Big Macs is the only way; the "only" way, that we can save our health care system. McGuinty would lecture us about how increasing taxes would discourage us from eating the wrong kinds of food. Dalton would be beating his chest with pride, knowing that he knows how to control the lives of his province’s citizens better than they do. McGuinty would fear monger about the danger of eating fast food and proclaim that obesity was a crisis in this province. But in the end, the tax would be imposed simply because Dalton an his boys and girls simply cannot stop spending.
The proposed Detroit tax is unfair as its critics have pointed out. But Kwame Kilpatrick should be complimented for being a straight shooter for not lecturing his electorate about how he’s only doing it for their own good. and let’s face it — there aren’t too many honest politicians around these days. Just look at Dalton.