Thursday, January 08, 2009

Deval Wants to Tackle Obesity

Noble goal - with some sensible solutions - but, ah, no offense, don't we have more important things going on now? Posting calories and weighing kids at school are probably great ideas, don't get me wrong (and goodness knows I could do a little more calorie counting myself), but in the face of all that's going on now, isn't this just a little bit gimmicky? It's paving the ugly sidewalks when the bridge just collapsed.

Here's some collapsing bridges the government could be dealing with now, instead:
  • Hundreds of millions may will be cut from local aid, without giving munis any options to deal with this new crisis upon their own budget crises... What about some pressing, sensible solutions... like allowing local option meals and hotel taxes?
  • What about the tolls gas tax? Lots of momentum to do something about it, something major and potentially historic - at least if we had a certain governor pushing it with the bully pulpit.
  • Heaven forbid we hear a little chatter about raising the income tax to help offset some of these crippling mid-year cuts...
  • J o b s.
None of this is to say the state can't kill a few birds with one stone, but I've read one too many Big Plan come from the corner office over the past two years. None of them ever go anywhere. The timing's always all wrong. They're never coordinated with the relevant members of the House and Senate. It all comes across as amateurish and wishful thinking. These aren't exactly genius ideas - any fool can come up with most of them. We don't need any more laundry lists, we need clean sheets and new socks.

2 comments:

Mark Belanger said...

The state of our kids obesity problem is a collapsing bridge.

The obese kids today will turn into the obese adults tomorrow and bring costs to society such as lower productivity, much higher health care costs, possible costs associated with dying young and leaving families unprovided for.

I don't have the figures handy, but you can be sure that obesity causes significant costs - costs that are sure to be astronomical as the current generation of obese kids finish their 21 years of chips and chicken tenders and turn into adults with massive health problems and high absenteeism. Then they'll procreate and create another even fatter generation with even more problems before dying young and leaving society to deal with it.

Parents who refuse to teach their kids to eat properly are creating costs - costs that I'll have to bear.

This is no different than smoking laws, drug awareness, and seatbelts. It is an attempt to deal with a serious, and costly, public health crisis.

Ryan said...

I don't disagree with you at all.

I'm just saying that the way the Governor has gone about this proposal is not going to lead to its passage. Good ideas, presented at the wrong time and without bringing in the House and Senate in the creation of the proposals is not a winning solution. This proposal is going to go the same place as free community college education, the Readiness Project and about half a dozen other 'major' policy proposals coming out of the Corner Office.

About Ryan's Take