All too recently, clients will plop a morbidly obese dog onto my exam table with the chief complaint, “He won’t eat.”

I have been dying to respond, “he’s probably full,” but I’m too chicken to state the obvious.

It appears America’s obesity epidemic has crossed species lines and since I have yet to see a dog with enough talent, intelligence or dexterity to run a can opener, humans must be the causative agent of this canine healthcare crisis. (I love using that phrase; it makes me feel so progressive.) Here is how this happens. People are programmed to seek pleasure and avoid pain and when you toss a plateful of short rib bones to your ten pound Chihuahua he rewards you by slobbering and wagging his tail. His excitement stimulates the release of pleasure endorphins from your brain. He is fat and dumb, and you’re happy, so all seems well in the beginning.

Over time, your ten pound Chihuahua passes through twenty on his way to a record breaking, thirty pounds. He is soon plagued with arthritis, back pain, flatulence and dental disease, but as long as you keep feeding him, he keeps wagging his tail and eating. So how do you get off the fat dog merry-go-round? Quit feeding the dog! Are you with me, because I am going to make a leap here?

Pick your favorite figure. Our national debt is $13.2 trillion, our unfunded liability to Social Security and Medicare is $130 trillion, our most recent annual federal deficit is $1.3 trillion and Montana’s biennial budget is nearly $8 billion. Figuratively speaking, our government Chihuahua is bloated and morbidly obese, yet we continue to feed the dang thing. Attention taxpayers: Quit feeding the dog!

Perfectly normal, well intentioned people get elected to political office, and they immediately sit down at the legislative dinner table and begin feeding the dog from the treasury. Because legislators get pleasure endorphins for the generous way they feed the dog with other people’s money, government quickly becomes so round it can barely walk to the feed dish.

After two legislative sessions, I am certain of one fact: Money sent to Helena will be spent in Helena. Legislators, or the majority of them, lack the self discipline to stop feeding the dog from the table so we must fundamentally shrink the amount of food available. Consider this reduction: Property tax contributes 10 percent of the revenues into Montana’s general fund which has grown nearly 48 percent over the last three legislative sessions. Since Montanans complain the recent property tax reappraisal process is inherently inequitable, let’s eliminate Montana state property tax entirely. Had this been done six years ago and state government still would have grown an insane 38 percent.

Stop and think how attractive Montana property becomes as an investment, if it is no longer burdened by property tax; the most unfair of all taxes. As it sits now, you may have been frugal your entire life and retired your 30 year mortgage, but if you senior citizens get behind on your property tax bill you will be removed from your residence down the barrel of a gun. You never freely and fully own your home because you forever pay rent to the government as property tax.

This is probably just a pipe dream, because progressives derive all their power from feeding the dog. They will offer compromises where property taxes are first paid in full and then progressives will redistribute tax-subsidy payments to voting blocks they deem of greater need. November 2, 2010 citizens will decide if we have the votes to quit feeding the dog.