001022 PETA: How About a Meat Tax

Following is a proposal by the organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA):

It is time for an excise tax on meat. More than eight billion animals are slaughtered every year for food in the United States alone. The companies that raise and kill animals for food represent a multibillion dollar industry, and the U.S. government has been giving them tens of billions of dollars in price supports and subsidies every year. It is unfair that the 26% of Americans who are decreasing their meat intake, and the 6-7% who identify themselves as vegetarians, are forced to pay the costs attributable to other people's behavior.

Our proposal entails an 8 cents per pound excise tax on meat, paid in the same way that the gasoline, tobacco, and alcohol taxes are paid, so that the tax is figured into the retail price. Each American buys roughly 226 pounds of meat per year. The United States, cumulatively, consumes 82.30 billion pounds of animal flesh. In 1994, a tobacco tax of 24 cents per pack generated 5.7 billion dollars. An alcohol tax of 7 to 10 dollars per gallon of grain alcohol (depending on type) generated 7.6 billion dollars. Federal excise taxes, in total, generated roughly 57 billion dollars. With an 8 cents per pound meat tax, revenue generated would be roughly 6.6 billion dollars.

Meat prices would go up only a few cents per pound, as part of the tax would be absorbed by the corporations, and part of the tax would be passed on to consumers, as demonstrated by the gas, tobacco, and alcohol taxes. The average American could expect to pay about 15 dollars in meat taxes, while vegetarians would pay nothing. However, our assumption is that as people learn about the health and environmental consequences of eating meat, consumption would slowly fall, thus lowering the price per person of the tax, and alleviating some of the health and environmental impacts of raising animals for food.

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