Balancing the Budget on the Back of Our Pets?
by Michael Schaffer

States across the country are facing enormous budget pressures due to the financial crisis. In most places, that has meant some combination of proposed spending cuts and proposed tax hikes. It’s an ugly season.

And among the unpopular proposals out there, one that seems an especially dubious political proposition is Maine’s push to increase the tax on…pet food.

A lot of pols would instinctively stay away from this kind of bill. Everyone hates tax hikes. Everyone loves puppies. Ergo, bad news for anyone seeking reelection sometime in the next century. No wonder the state’s governor is opposed.

But it it bad public policy? I don’t think so.

State Sen. John Nutting says the proceeds from the levy will go to paying for animal welfare programs–costs that have increased for a bunch of reasons, including a spike in pet abandonment caused by the recession and a new focus on busting puppy mills, something that reflects a modern ethic of humane pet production but costs money all the same. Previously, animal-welfare funds were collected by pet licensing fees. The problem is, lots of people avoid buying pet licenses. Short of having Pine Tree State troopers checking dog-tags from Kennebunkport to Augusta–which costs money, too, not to mention distracting the police from more important duties–this probably represents the best way to raise the necessary funds from that part of the population that disproportionately benefits from/causes government animal-welfare spending.

From the Bangor Daily News’ story:

“The scenario is to distribute the cost of animal welfare — which is just going to be getting bigger and is not going away — among more companion animal owners,” said Sen. Richard Nass, R-Acton, who was on a working group studying the problem and raised the idea with the ACF committee.

He said the state has a serious animal welfare problem. With every “puppy mill” that is raided where animals are seized because of the lack of health and safety, the seriousness of the problem is underscored, he said.

“We have had a long history of failed attempts at solving this problem,” Nass said. “There was the attempt to require registering of cats, and that was a big failure.”

Nutting agreed and said the committee had looked at several proposals for raising various licensing fees but came back to the issue that some dog owners and dog kennel owners are paying most of the cost of animal welfare programs that care for all types of pets.

“There are less than 50 percent of the people that actually choose to license their dogs,” Nutting said. “We need to have more people paying to support these programs.”

Frustratingly, the news accounts don’t say how much money Maine expects to make from raising the tax on pet food from five to six percent. But anyone who’s read my book One Nation Under Dog can tell you: A lot more than they would have twenty years ago. These days, it’s a $16.2-billion-a-year business, and customers who once bought Alpo at Safeway now buy lines like the $100-per-11lb-bag raw New Zealand lamb food from ZiwiPeak.