Report a Comment

@Pelham1861, the Salmonella study was paid for by - wait for it - the plastic bag industry, and has already been widely refuted.

@Jaime, link (took me 1 minute to find, fyi)

"A report on the Anacostia prepared two years ago found plastic bags made up about half of the trash in the river on the city’s east side. This year, an environmental group that does an annual river cleanup said it collected a third as many bags as it did in 2009."

Also, Fenty tried to divert the money but the council stopped him.

@Falls Church There's nothing wrong with a bag fee to discourage bag use just like there's nothing wrong with speed cameras to discourage dangerous behavior. But neither of these things should be revenue grabs.

Before the bag tax we were all paying for the litter that free bags caused in the form of a dirty river. Now we either pay a bag tax or we pay with a little effort to bring reusable bags. We're paying the same amount (or less probably now), we just pay it in a different format.

Do you really think it makes sense to create a new micro-tax and earmark money for every million bucks we spend?

What makes this different?

What makes this tax different from some other taxes is that it is a classic Pigovian tax. And as such, it makes sense to redirect the revenue from it to cover the cost of the negative externality you're taxing.

by David C on Feb 27, 2012 11:01 pm • link • report