steelwidow 
Succubus & EvilGenius
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Posts: 8691
(4/15/04 9:32 am)
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If you're fat and you live in a Belgian town...
DURBUY, Belgium -- Chunky citizens of a small Belgian town are being ordered to slim down or pay up.
The city has hit obese citizens with a special new tax, charging them roughly $25 a year for every pound they're overweight!
Porkier residents are outraged, calling the fat tax mean-spirited and wrong.
"This is out-and-out discrimination," blasts blubb- ery librarian Elsie Milliken, who tips the scales at 450 pounds. "Why should I have to pay higher taxes just because I'm a little on the big-boned side?"
But the chief sponsor of the ordinance, City Councilman Jozef Brindle, believes the law is not only fair but necessary to protect the health of all citizens.
"People in this fine city are eating way too much and the effect on their health has been devastating," explains Brindle, a svelte 146-pound fitness buff.
"We're a progressive city. Instead of just sitting idly by, watching our citizens digging their own graves, we're tackling the problem head on."
The bizarre law calls for a quarterly weigh-in for all citizens over age 18.
Those who come in at or below their ideal weight will get off free.
Those who twice exceed the acceptable weight are re- quired to pay the surcharge.
"Is it too much to ask people to have their weight checked every three months?" demands Brindle.
Mountainous Mrs. Milliken thinks so. She and dozens of her tubby pals have been picketing city hall every day since the anti-flab bill was passed just over a month ago.
"To have to stand on a scale like a prize hog as all your neighbors gawk is utterly humiliating," she protests. "And they're even talking about bringing in a special agricultural scale used for cows to weigh very big people like me."
The fat tax will put an undue financial strain on plump families who already have a huge food budget, argues the mother of five kids, all also obese. "We'll be less and less able to provide for our families."
Rail-thin Council-man Brindle, however, calls the added tax burden a blessing.
"Less money for chocolate ice cream and bonbons, less money for junk food -- that means better health," he points out.
The once-quiet streets of Durbuy are now congested with joggers, desperately trying to whittle themselves down to their target weight.
"I hate exercising," one pot-bellied 67-year-old citizen gripes, "but I hate paying taxes even more."
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