Paul Krugman’s Weighty Opinions: Pretending liberal elitism is all about the children
By Louis Wittig
Posted On July 25, 2005

How much do you think Paul Krugman would be willing to pay for a Wendy’s Biggie combo; a shimmering triple cheeseburger, sodium-soggy fries that have been under the heat lamp so long they almost burn your tongue and a bottomless well of Coke in a paper cup? Last week it cost $6.71 in New York. Maybe he’d pay $10? $14?

For the last two weeks Krugman’s been on a tear about obesity, and the above information is very important in understanding how he’s wrong – not why, that’s another issue – but how. In a nutshell (or a buttery microwaveable pastry pocket) Krugman is sucking in his unsightly elitist gut sense and tucking it under the rhetorical equivalent of slimming vertical stripes; the won’t-somebody-please-think-of-the-children feint.

In his July 4th column (“Girth of a Nation”), Krugman started with the same basic ingredients as most commentators who see fat Americans as an army of zombies devouring the body politic. Americans are fatter than ever before, unhealthier too. On the bright side class sizes in elementary schools are going down, but only because you can’t fit more than 15 oversized third graders in a room anymore. The only thing smaller than normal is arteries and Medicare is going broke buying balloons to prop them open. Too true, all of it, unfortunately. He adds that there is “a movement to do something about rising obesity” but it’s being stymied by the Center for Consumer Freedom, an advocacy group funded by Wendy’s lard money whose website claims “food liberty is under assault” and suggests people should be free to make their own decisions regarding Taco Bell.

As an aside, was “food liberty” the best the Center could come up with? I imagine John Hancock leaning over to sign the Declaration of Independence, then standing up straight and ripping a defiant mouthful off a fried chicken leg. Their instincts are in the right place, but hopefully things won’t get to the point where they have to make protest placards (“It’s a choice, not a cheeseburger”, “Get the U.S. out of my drive through lane,” etc., etc., etc.).

The “something” Krugman envisions being done, he writes in his July 8th column (“Free to Choose Obesity”) is a government intervention on the scale of anti-tobacco efforts past and present.

He doesn’t say it outright, but it’s “a good bet” (as Krugman writes when he doesn’t have the statistics he needs right at his fingertips) that he means to apply warning labels and deterrent taxes to Doritos and embarrass the airwaves with a rolling storm of public service ads where surly looking 13 year-olds try to wave the smell of frying bacon out the window as mom pounds on the bedroom door (slogans: Winners Don’t Use Melted Cheese, Carrots: The Anti-Hot Dog, etc.etc.etc.). Krugman doesn’t come right out and say that working, voting adults should have to submit to body mass index tests when they get their drivers’ licenses renewed. No no no. In fact, he makes it clear; “nobody is proposing that adult Americans be prevented from eating whatever they want.” Although he’s shamelessly flirting with the precepts of just that suggestion throughout. “It’s important…to emphasize that there are situations in which ‘free to choose’ is all wrong,” he writes, and “[we hope] adults can understand the consequences of their decisions,”(italics mine). But no, all efforts to curb the power of Big Mac “are efforts to help America’s children.”

Unfortunately, he notes in passing, because Red State voters are fatter than Blue State voters “it’s all too easy for worries about America’s weight to come off as cultural elitism.” That does tend to happen, doesn’t it? Shame. Another aside: there’s almost nothing more elitist than saying it’s easy for big fat people in the South and Midwest to misunderstand you, and then move on to your next point, sans explanation.

Through the rest of his column Krugman continues to contend that it’s all for the kids. But his mention of these vulnerable tykes comes parenthetically, and at the end of sentences, in “especially the young” type afterthoughts. His focus, his arguments, hammer on consumer choice (children don’t go grocery shopping, generally) and the burdensome cost of obesity-related health problems to taxpayers (nor do they pay taxes).

Then there’s another problem: the most successful anti-tobacco measures of the last 50 years, the obvious models, were aimed squarely at adults. There are the public service ads – kids are helpless before those. And the end of cigarette vending machines (thought that was premised on a law that said people under 18 couldn’t legally smoke. To remove Pepsi machines from public areas would, logically, require a similar ban; IDs for Sprite – anyone want to put that up for a vote?). How, though, were cigarette taxes specifically aimed at discouraging minors from smoking? By making it so that their parents had fewer Marlboros laying around to swipe? The warning labels are a little too legalistic for a sixth grade audience. Preventing teens from lighting up by making it illegal for anyone to smoke in any public place seems overkill. Maybe those government interventions were going after a wider crowd. It’s hard to believe he doesn’t see that.

Pounding one’s fist on the table and shouting “won’t somebody please think of the children!” when what one really means is “won’t somebody please do something about these overweight adults!” is a poor substitute for honest punditry. If Krugman really believes that the “history of government interventions on behalf of public health…is one of consistent, life-enhancing success,” as he claims, he should be proud to support efforts to curb Americans’ access to awful, awful food. It’s really bad.

In fact, to oppose limiting fast-food access for adults would be to commit that other sin that Red State voters so often do; opposing government programs that are so obviously in their own self-interest. When Krugman mentions that the great majority of Americans are overweight, he adds a sheepish “yes, me too.” Kudos and huzzah for full-disclosure (in the spirit of things you should know, too, that as I write this I’m chewing a Rice Krispie treat). I don’t know how overweight Krugman is. He doesn’t say obese, that’s a clue. Regardless, somewhere along the line his ability to understand the consequences of his lunch choices has slipped away from him (and if he can’t eat right, what chance do any of us readers have?). Someone clearly needs to step in and prevent him from doing any more damage. His wife and his doctor are probably too busy. But the U.S. government; a sales tax that would make the average Wendy’s combo $17 would benefit Krugman enormously.

But, though that’s where his logic points, he clearly states that no adult should have their bad decision-making ability taken away and put on a shelf that’s just out of reach. It seems he’s torn. He knows where his logic goes but he doesn’t really want to go there with it.

He’s right about one thing though. It is easy for his concern for the kids to come off as cultural elitism.

It’s even easier to see that’s just what it is.

Louis Wittig can be reached at lwittig@excite.com.

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