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In the appended article and elsewhere we are told that kids are becoming obese while spending far too many hours immobilized before TV's and play-stations. We are told, and it is true, that it would be highly beneficial if kids spent more time enjoying the natural environment and participating in unstructured outdoor play. I fully support those goals and yet I find myself questioning the mechanisms being brought to bear upon this situation.
Forget for the moment that the now-famous Richard Louv (Brand) "Nature Deficiency Disorder" is largely the over-hyped PR-creation of the recreation industry. Forget that the industry's purpose for promulgating this campaign (starting more than a decade before Louv was elevated to celebrity status) has always been to get more kids, teens, adults, retires and recreation consumers into the woods on off-road vehicles while pumping money into the tourism economy.  Forget that vital piece of information and merely ask yourself whether it is appropriate to impose regressive and/or sin taxes that disproportionately impact persons of limited financial means?
In this instance, is it right to penalize a poor minority family or the single mother whose kids are getting fat while glued in front of the TV? Will taxing their TV or video game resolve the social and economic issues that created this situation? Will taking money from that family's budget solve their children's weight problems, improve the quality of their diet or allow poor children to have recreational opportunities even vaguely similar to those of wealthy families -- families easily capable of purchasing the biggest televisions on the market while spending but a fraction of the tax cuts heaped upon them in recent years -- families who can afford personal trainers, memberships at the gym and even the new "America the Beautiful - National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Annual Pass" created by and for the identical recreation industry groups currently hyping the "More Kids in the Woods" mantra.
Poorer people and working people did not receive similar windfalls. Poorer families can not afford the higher fees charged to access outdoor recreation areas, engage in school sports, or to swim and play at the local municipal park. Higher fees which exclude the poor are oftentimes, by design, meant to exclude the poor. EXCLUSION is their purpose
I don't know what it is with the conservation community that they have become increasingly quick to rally behind regressive taxes and user fees. Socking it to the poor with TV-taxes is but the tip of an enormous iceberg of society-altering proposals based upon pricing and economic coercion. Pricing the poor out of the market has become a preferred tool of neoliberals and the liberals alike! Conservationists, in particular, have become extremely supportive of using targeted taxes and user fees to address a wide range of environmental problems. In this regard, they have embraced a New Environmentalism far removed from, and oftentimes counter to, the ideals of environmental and social justice.
Scott
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January 26, 2008
US state wants to tax TVs, video games to fight fat, fund education
A Democratic lawmaker in New Mexico wants to tax televisions and video
games to raise funds to fight childhood obesity and improve education
in the state, officials said Friday.
"I have asked our legislative council service to prepare the "Leave No
Child Inside" bill and am hopeful that it will be ready for me to
introduce on Monday," educator-turned-lawmaker Gail Chasey told AFP.
"Leave No Child Inside" -- a play on the federal education initiative
"No Child Left Behind" -- is backed by grassroots environmental group,
the Sierra Club.
"The bill proposes levying a one-percent excise tax on the purchase of
TVs, video games and video game equipment and would create the 'Leave
No Child Inside' fund to receive those revenues," Michael Casaus of the
Sierra Club told AFP.
The author and sponsors of the bill, who include dozens of other
organizations besides the Sierra Club, according to Casaus, expect to
raise four million dollars (three million euros) a year through the tax.
The items that would be taxed have been carefully chosen because of
their links to obesity and poor school performance, the Sierra Club
says, citing medical studies.
Around one-quarter of New Mexico's children are obese or overweight, and just over half finish high school, said Casaus.
"The goals of the bill are to improve the academic performances of our
kids, to promote a more healthy lifestyle and to provide our children
with outdoor learning experiences, using our state parks and public
lands as classrooms," he said.
According to a study cited by backers of the bill, hands-on, outdoor
study leads to better grades among students, including in mathematics
and science.
Another study has shown a 27-percent improvement in the science test
scores of students who participate in outdoor education programs.
Earlier this week, a high school in the US state of Georgia launched
another unique initiative to boost the math and science grades of
students.
Creekside High School near Atlanta offered students money to attend
remedial classes in the two subjects for 15 weeks and a monetary bonus
for maintaining a "B" grade average afterwards.
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