Jarboe letter: Import tax

I am writing in defense of food. I am concerned that a Mexican import tax will be a detriment to health, especially of the unborn. We know how important nutrition is at this vulnerable stage of growth. This tax will make consumers, including mothers, pay for the wall, not Mexico.

Personally I want to take care of children because our future depends on them. Feeding them vegetables keeps them fit and alert and ready when the “torch is passed” to them.

According to Alfredo Duarte of Taxco Produce, we don’t produce vegetables in the winter in the United States. Much of the fresh produce in the stores in the winter comes from Mexico. Since the poorest people, like mothers and retirees, pay the largest percent of their income on food, they will be impacted the most. Meanwhile the president doesn’t pay income tax. Does this really sound like a Christian country?

Michelle Obama made us aware of how hard it is for the poorest to even find vegetables in “food deserts.” The tax would make this problem worse. The new administration seems to want to trade the vegetable garden at the White House for a “glam room” and forget our children.

This story was originally published February 8, 2017 at 6:34 PM with the headline "Jarboe letter: Import tax."