So, the usual suspects reckon a salt tax would be a great idea in New Zealand:
First they pushed to tax fizzy drink, now public health advocates want a "salt tax" slapped on everything from hot chips to pretzels.
In a paper published in the Plos One international journal, Otago University of Wellington academics including health experts and economists argued we need to be weaned off our salt heavy diet.
This could include enforcing limits on the supply of salt, or taxing the ingredient before it was even added to your bread, tomato sauce or packet of chips.
Robin Hanson
pointed to issues in the salt literature a few years ago:
A new JAMA study finds a strong correlation: the third of folks who eat the least salt die over three times as often as the third of folks who eat the most salt. Yet other studies almost as big find contrary effects. I find it quite disturbing that such big studies can show such different results; something is very wrong in big diet correlation study land.
Nick Wilson, in the NZ piece, argues that
"Politically it's something that a government could do to save a lot of money with no public outcry."
Yeah,
there's never civil unrest associated with salt taxes.
