Hard Pass on Human Composting & Fairfax County Cooks Up Meals Tax
Here's the latest dispatch.
Good afternoon,
For you newbies out there, welcome to Outsider on the Inside. I hope this dispatch from in and around the nation’s capital on underreported topics finds you well.
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Quick Thoughts
Support and follow the work of IWF’s Center for Energy and Conservation today if you haven’t already.
Documentarian Morgan Spurlock, director of ‘Super Size Me’, passed away from cancer. He was 53.
We’re getting the five final Yellowstone TV episodes. FINALLY!
Marked safe from the Brood XIX cicada hatch. Ha!
The new social media trend is pushing your politics—not posting about your kids. Hmmm.
A Kansas-based pregnant red angus cow named 88 is taking social media by storm. She’s due any moment now.
A conservation-friendly Farm Bill - totally $1.7T - passed the House Agriculture Committee yesterday. Some Democrats who want to target farmers and ranchers with climate policies say it doesn’t go far enough. Okay, then…
Twitter/X will soon sunset post likes.
The Kansas Chiefs — recently, Travis Kelce — haven’t thrown their teammate, Harrison Butker, under the bus in wake of his Benedictine College speech.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for next Friday’s update!
The Latest Climate Grift: ‘Carbon-Free’ Human Composting
What's the top concern in the Golden State right now? Expediting the implementation of a 2022 law to allow human composting.
The L.A. Times, unsurprisingly, is giving new light to it ahead of 2027, when it goes into effect. Former California Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, the bill’s author, told the publication, "I love the outdoors and I really want to be a tree in my afterlife.
The publication cited human composting “pioneer” Katrina Spade of Recompose - a Seattle-based public benefit corporation billed as the “world’s first human composting company” - pushing this effort in the states. She wrote in 2016, “The truth is, the last gesture most of us will make on this earth is toxic.”
Spade previously founded the nonprofit Urban Death Project, revealing to the Austin Chronicle the nonprofit’s mission is to “create new alternative death care that is equitable, ecological, and meaningful.”
Media reports have insisted the practice is “carbon-neutral.” CNN is under the illusion it’s environmentally-friendly and will “help slow the climate crisis driven by burning fossil fuels that produce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane.”
The Green Burial Council linked to this white paper on the environmental cost and impact of NOR. It revealed that human composting - gasp! - still releases greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere like conventional burial services.
The white paper explained, “Composting itself releases a fair amount of greenhouse gasses, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), along with other gasses. Aerated composting releases relatively little methane (CH4), and smaller amount of nitrous oxide (N2O). Bodies composted in conservation burial graves almost certainly release more methane, which is produced in low oxygen environments, but less N20. Both methane and N2O are stronger greenhouse gasses than CO2. Methane is around 23 times more powerful at greenhouse warming and N2O is almost 300 times stronger than CO2. A good estimate is that aerated composting will release around 1 ton of methane per 100 tons composted, and only 40 pounds of N2O. That is equivalent to 23 tons of CO2 and 6 tons of CO2 respectively in terms of greenhouse gases.100 composted bodies represent roughly 50 tons of material being composted, and the equivalent of nearly 15 tons of CO2 in non-CO2 greenhouse gasses.”
Fairfax County is Drunk on Taxation
While much of my work centers on policy from the federal government and state legislatures, I also pay close attention to the shenanigans in my county, Fairfax County in Virginia. Unsurprisingly, our Board of Supervisors is up to no good entertaining more tax directives.
Property taxes will go up 3 cents here - or between $450-$524 on average per family - in the near future. As Washington Examiner noted:
According to the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, since fiscal 2000, property taxes have increased three times higher than household income. The increase in tax burden is making Fairfax County less affordable each year — but not for people such as McKay, apparently, who can just raise his own salary. In fiscal 2025, the average household tax in the county will be $8,700.
More than half of the county’s revenue goes to its public schools. But looking at test scores, Fairfax County’s taxpayers are not getting a good return on their investment. In 2023, 25% of the district’s students failed their math standards of learning test, 22% failed reading, 43% failed writing, and 38% failed history.
We rank below our neighbors West Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee on property taxes. No wonder why people, including my neighbors, are fleeing Virginia for freer pastures. Not to mention I pay roughly $300-400 annually in personal property taxes to Fairfax Co. on my used 2017 Subaru Forester I bought at full price in 2019.
To fund Fairfax County Schools, the Board of Supervisors wants to institute a meals tax - a policy that’s unpopular even here in blue Fairfax County.
In November 2016, 56% of voters opposed the ballot measure that would instituted a 4% tax on prepared food. And it was previously defeated by a wider margin in November 1992—58% to 42%—when the county still voted Republican. But during the Democrat trifecta during the Ralph Northam administration, a 2020 law now allows local governments to institute a meal tax without giving voters a say. (Just lovely.)
Why the meals tax, and way now? Our Board of Supervisors apparently wants to “diversify” county revenues in this manner because, in their eyes, they aren’t getting enough by extorting us with high property tax hikes.
Tell me how over $5 billion in the Fiscal Year 2024 Adjusted Budget Plan, largely coming from taxes, isn’t enough? How about the $5.4B requested for FY 2025? If you don’t believe me, see this General Fund Revenue Overview - FY 2025 Advertised Budget Plan proposal from our county yourself:
Meals Tax Will Exacerbate Inflation
Is there no consideration for inflationary pressures? The Richmond Times-Dispatch just reported how inflation is hurting our capital city restaurants, citing the National Restaurant Association’s 2024 State of the Restaurant Industry survey. The NRA finds food costs are up: “98% of operators say higher labor costs are an issue for their restaurant. 97% cite higher food costs. 38% say their restaurants were not profitable last year.”
Adding insult to injury, the Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS) published the Consumer Price Index, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria area – March 2024 revealing food and energy prices were up 2.5% and 4.1%, respectively, in the last 12 months.
The BLS adds:
Over the year, food prices increased 2.5 percent with prices for food away from home rising 4.7 percent. For the same period, prices for food at home rose 1.0 percent. For the grocery index, rising prices in the other food at home index (+3.4 percent) and the nonalcoholic beverages and beverage materials index (+3.7 percent) led the advance.”
Meals Taxes Simply Don’t Work
I didn’t realize how many localities have this tax here in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The aforementioned 2020 law I referenced will complicate things since the issue can’t go to the voters anymore. As the nonpartisan Tax Foundation notes:
Although local governments sometimes see meals taxes as an attractive additional revenue stream, they tend to be frowned upon by economists and public finance experts. This is primarily because meals taxes do not accord well with the “benefit test” for taxation, which asks whether those paying a tax also receive the benefits which flow from the resulting governmental expenditures. Out-of-town visitors dining at local restaurants do not stand to benefit from the funding of most local projects and priorities.
Similarly, there is nothing inherent in the concept of eating prepared foods that intuitively merits a higher level of taxation. The consumption of prepared foods does not impose increased costs on society or necessitate government programs which might require a dedicated funding stream.
Fellow Fairfax County peeps: Join me in adamantly opposing this.
Scenes from the Week
ICYMI
Articles/commentary/media appearances from the past week.
MEDIA MENTIONS
I was quoted again in the New York Post and Washington Times about Biden, once again, tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve - an emergency supply - to “lower” gas prices.
My RealClearEnergy column was cross-posted by The Epoch Times, RealClearWire, The Highland County Press, and The Fairfield Sun Times.
I appeared on The Vic Portelli Show on NewsTalk STL to discuss Biden’s land grabs.
ARTICLES/BLOGS
RealClearEnergy/IWF: EPA’s Clean Power Plan Rule Prioritizes Net-Zero Over Grid Reliability
District of Conservation
Catch up on District of Conservation episodes below.
And check out a new episode of The Sportswoman Show with my friend and fellow fly angler, Angelica Talan!
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—Gabriella