Robot-Heart and Jeff Miller are having an interesting discussion on abandoned pets and how the government should respond. As I understand, Robot Heart wants to immediately and temporarily allow pet owners to deduct pet medical expenses on their taxes. Jeff Miller thinks she’s crazy.
I’m with Jeff this time. I’ll happily concede a legitimate public interest in keeping packs of stray dogs off city streets (and having walked places where children throw sticks at stray and dubiously safe dogs, I’ll attest, that sort of thing can affect you). If we need to increase animal control’s budget, we should do it. And spay/neuter would almost certainly be cost effective. And, as sad as it is, I could also support euthanasia clinics for animals—particularly horses—because that shouldn’t be a do-it-yourself task. Similarly, expenses for medically necessary service animals should be treated like other medical expenses.
But do we need a special tax break to keep pets healthy and with their owners? I don’t think that’s the best use of scarce public resources. We currently treat animals purely as property, albeit property with a particular emotional importance, and under such a regime it doesn’t make sense to give tax more breaks for pet medical care than we would give for caring for, say, a beloved automobile. And if we wanted to raise animals above the “cherished possession” status, we might have to start treating them more humanely before we kill and eat them. Furthermore, the people who are spending the most to care for their pets are not the ones abandoning them, so I suspect those who would most benefit from a tax break for pet care (me) are those in a position to spend a lot on their pets and have a sufficient cushion that they can spend the money on pets and get some of it back when April rolls around. Until we’re a bit less conflicted on animal welfare, I’m happy to let responsible pet ownership be a largely private virtue.
