ABSTRACT
In the fall of 2007, Alabama Arise, a coalition of congregations and organizations based in Montgomery, Alabama, mounted a campaign to persuade the state legislature to cancel the sales tax on food for home consumption, a levy that—between state and local taxation—was adding as much as 12% to consumers’ grocery bills. State taxes of this kind hit everyone, rich and poor alike, in the pocketbook. But Alabama citizens at the bottom of the ladder, who live at the very edge of survival to begin with, were finding themselves unable to feed their families at the 370end of the month. Looking to stretch the dollar or the allotment of food stamps, poor families were going without or switching to cheap food that fills the stomach, but leads to obesity and all the damaging consequences that follow.
