Should the U.S. adopt a fat tax?

Warren Hardy, a lobbyist for the Nevada Restaurant Association, argues that his state's proposed tax — and fat taxes in general — are "the very definition" of a regressive tax that will place a disproportionate burden on the poor.

Research published by the Forum for Health Economics & Policy supports this claim.The report, which measures the impact a 10 percent fat tax would have on families of varying income levels, concludes that "almost the entire burden of the fat tax falls on poor families. The regulatory burden for the average family declines rapidly with income. ...[T]hus the burden at $20,000 is nearly 10 times larger than that at $100,000."

Opponents also point out that a fat tax in Denmark on foods with a saturated fat content above 2.3 percent — implemented in 2011 and then repealed just one year later — failed to change consumers' buying habits. Many Danes opposing the new tax simply stocked up on goods before the law went into effect, or hopped the border to either Germany of Sweden, where they paid as much as 20 percent less for the same items. Thetax also cost the country an estimated 1,300 jobs, mainly due to a trimming of workers in food retail sectors.

To really nuke the problem, you need big guns — bigger than most politicians are willing to back. Most studies agree it would take a tax increase of at least 20 percent to meaningfully change consumers' buying behavior — a steeper rate than eventhe most ardent proponents of the fat tax are proposing.

So instead of implementing tax increases at a time when food prices are already onthe rise (and when new taxes are sure to prove unpopular and politically impossible),many public health advocates argue that the real way to wean Americans off of junk food is to change how the U.S. government awards its agricultural subsidies.

According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, 87 percent of federal tax subsidies go toward meat, dairy, corn and other grains — a large portion of which are used to make junk food — while less than 1 percent goes towards fruits and vegetables.

These subsidies, writes Michael Pollan in an op-ed for the New York Times, are howthe U.S. has made "Twinkies cheaper than carrots and Coca-Cola competitive with water."