sin taxes are diverted to the rich!
Pilar is a small lady who wants someone with a big physical presence, a loud voice and a bit of influence around town to tell the people who rake in billions from sin taxes to spend it on people in need, not on advertisements that insult the sinners and divert taxes to the rich.
"Every day when you hear about the plight of our public health system and the many people who are suffering agonies because of lack of funds to treat them you feel like screaming: why are you diverting all the revenue you're getting from smokers and drinkers away from hospitals and welfare projects into the pockets of lobby groups and their advertisers?"
"I'm not talking strictly about smokers or drinkers suffering in agony because of lack of funds to treat them, although all of us fall into one sin or another," says Pilar. "I'm talking about pregnant women turned away from hospitals -- no beds; premature babies being treated in antiquated cribs; injured veterans being treated in substandard conditions; old people rotting in filthy nursing home conditions; children and adults in pain from toothache, too poor to pay for a private dentist; and mentally ill people dying on the streets because of lack of funds to help them."
"I'm sick of hearing about 'lack of funds' from various health departments," says Pilar. "The government gets billions of tax dollars just from smokers, and billions more from tobacco companies, and the understanding was always that this money was earmarked for the health costs of smoking -- which, according to them, is just about every disease known to man -- and as such it should go straight into public health and welfare for everyone’s benefit."
"I want an end to the abominable, psychologically damaging anti-sin advertisements," says Pilar, "and I want the government to stop using our sin-taxes to pay them."
"These advertisements are fraudulently funded and fraudulently produced," says Pilar. "It's as fraudulent as the government raising a special tax on foods cooked with trans fat -- saying it's to pay for the health costs of obesity -- and then to waste this tax on funding advertisements showing grotesquely obese people stuffing themselves with food."
"How would these advertisements affect obese people? It's nothing more than emotional abuse, right?"
"Sure, I can switch off all media to avoid being inflicted with this sort of psychological damage," says Pilar, "and I just might have to do that if no brave man or woman in a position of influence is willing to put the welfare of vulnerable people ahead of the agendas of moralistic crusaders."
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