Have you heard the proposal in California and several other states to tax soft drinks in order to make people lose weight? Or the one to ban toys in fast-food kids' meals in order to "fight childhood obesity"?

Such heavy-handed measures may sound unappetizing, but it's all brought to you...

Taxes are one of only two sure things in life. And after November’s elections showed that people don’t want higher taxes, politicians are going to have to get more clever about taking more of our money.

Already, lawmakers in California are looking for taxes next year on – wait for...

Washington is considering banning plastic bags in order to discourage their use and save the environment. If consumers replace their plastic bags with reusable bags, we as a society will reduce our carbon footprint and keep plastic bags from entering our waterways and getting caught in our trees, right?

Unfortunately,...

While Maryland state lawmakers consider instituting a five-cent fee on plastic bags, you should consider this: Those polypropylene bags that will replace them are likely to bring dangerous bacteria like E. coli in contact with your food. ("The (occasional) virtues of nickel-and-diming," Feb. 8).

According to a recent survey from Opinion Research Corporation, more...

The Virginia General Assembly was considering fees legislation that would have taxed (or banned) plastic bags in order to discourage their use and save the environment. Fortunately for Virginians, these proposals have been tabled — for now.

While the argument for bag taxes seems simple enough — replacing plastic bags with reusable...

What do trial lawyers and candy bans have in common? As the nation's waist-lines grew over the past 10 years, so did calls for more and more invasive government controls of what and how much we eat. While anti-obesity puritans have proposed some pretty ludicrous controls (such as putting...

The festive weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s always provide plenty of reasons to push dieting plans aside until it’s time to make resolutions. But with obesity rates rising, anti-fat activists have gotten increasingly cheerless in their calls for slimming down. Even Santa hasn’t been spared.

Last winter Australian researchers...

I'm writing to correct some information about the Humane Society of the United States. The nation's wealthiest animal rights group often says it has 11 million members, but its own tax records and fundraising letters show that this is a dramatically inflated number ("Humane Society gets first Nebraska...