Virginia’s freshly minted Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger is reportedly considering slapping a brand new tax on gym memberships. That’s right — the government that spends billions telling you to eat your vegetables and get off the couch now wants to penalize you financially for actually doing it. Welcome to the Democratic Party in 2026, where your bicep curls are a revenue opportunity.
Let me say that again so it sinks in: they want to tax you for not being a burden on the healthcare system. If a Republican satirist pitched this as a joke at CPAC, people would say it was too on-the-nose. But here we are, living in a world where staying healthy is a luxury they want to tax like a yacht.
We’ve been watching this pattern for decades now. The same government that subsidizes corn syrup, that makes processed garbage cheaper than fresh produce, that spent COVID locking people inside while closing gyms and parks — THAT government now looks at someone paying $40 a month to lift weights and thinks, “You know what? We should get a cut of that.”
Think about the layers of insanity here. Michelle Obama spent eight years lecturing us about childhood obesity. The CDC runs campaigns begging Americans to exercise more. Every government health initiative since the Nixon administration has told us to move our bodies. And now? Now a Democratic governor looks at the people who actually listened and says, “Pay up, fitness boy.”
Spanberger barely warmed her seat in Richmond before she started looking for new ways to pick the pockets of Virginia taxpayers. This is a woman who ran as a “moderate” — a former CIA officer, supposedly reasonable, supposedly not one of the crazies. And her big idea is taxing Planet Fitness memberships. Moderate, everyone. This is what moderate looks like when the mask comes off.
Here’s what this is really about, and we all know it even if they’ll never say it out loud: healthy people are harder to control. People who take care of themselves don’t need the government’s help as much. They don’t depend on Medicaid. They don’t line up for prescription drug programs. They have energy, they have clarity, they push back. An obese, sedentary, depressed population is a compliant population. A guy who deadlifts 400 pounds and eats clean? That guy votes wrong.
So yeah — tax the gym. Make it just expensive enough that the guy on the fence decides to stay home and watch Netflix instead. Keep them soft. Keep them tired. Keep them needing you.
And let’s talk dollars and cents for a second. The average gym membership in Virginia runs somewhere between $30 and $60 a month. For a lot of working families, that’s already a stretch. Dad skips the morning coffee so he can keep his gym membership because he knows it keeps his blood pressure down and his head clear. Now Spanberger wants to add a tax on top of that. For what? So she can fund another diversity program? Another study on equity in transportation? Another consultant who makes $200K to produce a PDF nobody reads?
You know what’s NOT getting taxed in Virginia? Candy. Soda. Fast food. All exempt from the state’s food tax. So let me get this straight: a two-liter of Mountain Dew is tax-free, but your CrossFit membership gets hit? A bag of Doritos walks out of 7-Eleven tax-free, but your yoga class is a revenue source? This isn’t policy. This is a clown show.
The MAHA movement is gaining ground precisely because people are waking up to this insanity. Americans are reading ingredient labels, questioning Big Pharma, joining gyms, going carnivore, cutting seed oils — and the establishment HATES it. Every healthy American is a customer lost for the pharmaceutical-industrial complex. Every person who fixes their diet instead of popping a pill is revenue walking out the door.
And now Virginia wants to make fitness more expensive. On purpose. With a tax.
We used to joke that Democrats would tax the air you breathe if they could figure out how to meter it. Turns out they just decided to tax the air you breathe harder — at the squat rack.
Virginia, you voted for this. Spanberger told you who she was, and enough of you believed the “moderate” branding to put her in the governor’s mansion. Now she’s coming for your gym membership. Next it’ll be your protein powder. Then your running shoes. Then whatever else healthy people spend money on that the government decides it deserves a piece of.
They want you fat, sick, and dependent. And now they’ll literally tax you for trying not to be. Remember that next time someone tells you both parties are the same.
