Why not tax fat people?
Karen Eggers Eggers worked in the criminal justice field for 20 years. She is a real estate agent living in Riner. The General Assembly met this session in a bleak climate of overwhelming economic hardships, massive layoffs creating unemployment, robbing employees of health care benefits, homeowners facing foreclosure, the mortgage crisis, major companies begging for bailouts, record-breaking state budget shortfalls, affecting everything from our state’s infrastructure to our education system. Yet our legislature’s focus seems to be cigarettes. With the current turmoil, the governor and our legislative body should have more pressing issues than banning smoking in restaurants and (most) bars. (Virginia regulates an establishment’s sale of alcoholic beverages by food sales.) It is inconceivable that when all efforts should be toward stimulating the economy, our smoking-obsessed governor proposes bills that may very well create economic hardships for already struggling businesses. Most re
