Posted on 08/26/2008 6:19:16 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
By your reasoning, a city with a broken sewer system would be within its rights and fulfilling its responsibility to the public by restricting the amount of food you consume and the days you can do it.
Somehow everybody seems to think that it is litterers who carelessly toss these plastic bags out windows, on their lawns and yours, carry them to beaches and float them off like message bottles and such; the reality is that sloppy trash disposal allows the majority of these flimsy sail planes to escape from the confines of the trash trucks as they collect at houses and businesses and then dump their loads in improperly maintained landfills.
In reality the blame largely lies with the people who run the trash system but they would rather find a new source of revenue to cover their own added costs than to better run the collection and disposal of these plastic bags.
I hear you. The contractors I’ve used on our home (kitchen remodel, bathroom, and floors) has been quite mindful of cleaning up after themselves.
On the other hand, our neighbor has had people redo their driveway. They’ve drank beer and dropped cans in OUR yard.
No government tax fazes folks like these. It just affects the VAST MAJORITY of those of us who are law abiding as usual!
I say that most people are quite respectful, do not litter and put their trash where it belongs. There’s a very small percentage of the population that are jerks as usual.
It’s the same argument that the gun grabbers use ultimately. Some people will commit crimes with a gun. So because of those criminals, the rest of us law abiding types will suffer.
While the criminals continue to commit crimes undeterred by it all.
A. What, exactly, IS the "true cost" of a disposable bag?
B. Who determines said cost? The Sierra Club? As if we'd BELIEVE them??
C. Since the "disposable" bags are recyclable, is their use really a "cost" or is it ultimately a benefit?
Why not rather put a nickle return value on each one, like with glass bottles and aluminum cans?? The folks would bring thhe bags back and dispose of them at the stores, and the bums would self-enlist as the California Bag Recovery Team to pick up any strays.
It's worked so well with aluminum cans that suburban areas have occasional problems with the homeless coming through in the early morning hours on trash day raiding people's recycle bins for them.
So why not plastic bags, too?? It'd be far and away preferable to yet another damnable tax with a high-minded name, and an infernal final disposition.
I hate 'em anyway. They leak, the handles tear, they hurt your hands when carrying something heavy, they collapse in the car and spill the contents, causing stuff to roll around on the floor of the car. They're useless to reuse, except as filler when shipping something. I think they should be banned altogether.
From your response I assume you (a) don't have a dog, or (b) don't walk the poor introverted critter.
More to the point, but off topic; remember when "they" were pushing plastic because it didn't kill trees?
Even more to the point; how come they make expensive (blue) tarpaulins that dissolve in 18 months but can't make a cheap grocery bag or six pack carrier that goes away in less than a millennium?
No dog, but I do have a cat, and the grocery bags are useless for disposing of cat patties from the litter box. The litter (and worse) leaks through the holes in those lousy bags. They're worse than nothing, because you think you have the stuff contained, but then you have to clean up the floor where the stuff leaked through on the way to the garbage can.
Even if I drove (using gas — and more $$$ out of my pocket) to my nearest recycling center I would never get back the tax that was charged on top of the CRV.
As for product wrappers, there doesn’t have to be an alternative. As something like the California Redemption Value argument illustrates. All they need to do is have some petty tax on top for every product sold in a wrapper. We didn’t eliminate cans did we?
Regardless of the minutiae of these tertiary arguments that we can go back and forth on — the basic premise that the government can change behavior by taxing you 15cents for a grocery bag is bunk. And I think you know it.
All this is, is a way to collect revenue for the State. Even from those who are responsible with their garbage.
I would never have expected to argue these points on a conservative website. Plenty of people have come up with great alternatives (the bounty idea sounds wonderful) that fit the conservative mold better than just adding a “tax” to generate revenue that ends up in the general fund to go to some other socialist program.
I'm arguing this because I'm strongly in favor of use taxes. I think there are relatively few services the govt should provide via general tax revenue - defense is the major one, clearly. People want municipal water? Tax those who want it. People want sewer? Tax them for it. I'll do just fine with a well and septic system. Same as grocery bags. People want them? Then pay for their proper disposal. I'll use real bags. Right now, who is paying for the clean up of this litter? Users of bags and non-users alike.
Also, I said from the get-go that I think this would cease to be dedicated to clean-up of bags and end up in the big pot. That isn’t something I’m okay with.
I think that ultimately you and I would end up agreeing in general. I think the problem is that I am focused more on how this system will be used by those in Sacramento (and seeing how they have used similar taxes in the past), and you are focused on the concept of use taxes (which I don’t disagree with actually).
My other big problem with a use tax for cleanup is that it presumes that most people who use these bags is a litterbug. In fact, given how careful we are with litter — it is more than a little offensive to call it a use tax when we do not ever let them out in the wild.
I then maintain that you would have to support a use tax on general snack food products, fast food bags and cups, etc... as I do see more of a problem with them in my area than I do with grocery sacks. This leads down a road that troubles me when you consider how this money would be used (in short — you’d still have littered areas, while druggies get needle exchange programs, or whatever pet social cause of the week is popular in Sacramento).
Since when is not bringing a shopping bag “lazy”
I use my bags for tons of stuff.. and collect them. Ill be darned if I am going to be forced by the nanny state to turn them all in or bring my own to the store.. now matter HOW brainwashed the enviro nuts have the rest of the sheeple.
Yeah, and by the same reasoning if people quit crapping we could do away with the sewer system.
Or let the people who are using the sewer system pay for the damn thing. Oh wait. That IS what we do.
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