Vegan Tax Breaks

From Club for Growth (here):

The Hill newspaper reports:

Citing the need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is calling on congressional leaders to give vegetarians a tax break.

In a letter sent Wednesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), PETA President Ingrid Newkirk stated, “[V]egetarians are responsible for far fewer greenhouse-gas emissions and other kinds of environmental degradation than meat-eaters.”

The letter added that vegetarians should receive a tax break “just as people who purchase a hybrid vehicle enjoy a tax break.”

If this passed into law, does that mean I'd have my own personal bureaucrat monitoring all of my meals to measure compliance? When I related this story to our communications director, Nachama, she said this article might be evidence that not eating meat causes mental deterioration.

Excerpt from Reason (here):

The best part of this is how little the group's gamed it out:

Asked how the government would certify that taxpayers are vegetarian, PETA spokesman Matt Prescott said, “I imagine that a system could be adopted whereby taxpayers could show receipts for food purchases and/or sign an affidavit attesting … that they are vegetarian. If Congress is seriously interested about rewarding people for reducing their carbon emissions, then it could develop a system to verify that people are vegetarian.”

It could develop a system! Of course.

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Via To The People, whose Cicero adds:

I have a similar idea, and I hope PETA supporters and environmentalists are the first to sign up. The federal government should give $10,000 to the family of every person who kills themselves to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I call it, "Save the Earth, Drop Dead."

Why go that far? PETA should steal from the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement and suggest tax breaks for couples who don't breed. (Or bring on Mark Steyn and double the tax break for Muslim couples.)

I have another question - why do we need the false dichotomy of vegan vs. carnivore? After all, if the point is to discourage activity that leads to the generation of greenhouse gases, why don't we give people who only eat meat once a week a tax break? After all, that's better than someone who eats meat six times a week.