The Problem With Paying the Fat-Tax...

...is getting the Dane to pay it.*

COPENHAGEN — Denmark said Saturday it would scrap a fat tax it introduced a little over a year ago in a world first, saying the measure was costly and failed to change Danes’ eating habits.

“The fat tax and the extension of the chocolate tax — the so-called sugar tax — has been criticised for increasing prices for consumers, increasing companies’ administrative costs and putting Danish jobs at risk,” the Danish tax ministry said in a statement.

“At the same time it is believed that the fat tax has, to a lesser extent, contributed to Danes travelling across the border to make purchases,” it added. ”Against this background, the government and the (far-left) Red Green Party have agreed to abolish the fat tax and cancel the planned sugar tax.”

Apart from the obvious failure of nanny-statism that this story acknowledges, it's remarkable also for identifying the Red Green Party as being "far left." A US newspaper probably wouldn't describe it so, more than likely would refer to it as "centrist." In fact, a US newspaper would either ignore this story entirely or relegate it to a single paragraph on page A37, under the fold, down in a corner somewhere. And US leftists like Nanny Bloomberg of NYC wouldn't acknowledge failure, they'd double down and write laws and regulations to force people to comply.

*As soon as I read this story it made me think of Rudyard Kipling's poem Dane-Geld.