[BGHater]

'"We are hoping that at 6 cents a bag, people would change their behavior." '

Rats. That's all we are in their utopia.

[NoKoolAidforMe]

This man is a dictator. He needs to go.

[kbennkc]

The financial mess is worse than I thought . A nickel bag is 6 cents . How much is a dime bag ?

[Nekman]

Silly me, I read the headline and thought ole Bloomy was going to put a tax on Pot sales!

[hometoroost]

There are plenty of nickel bags in NY already. I think the NY politicians have spent too much time smoking them.

[McLynnan]

What about all the plastic bag manufacturing jobs that will be lost?

[KarlInOhio]

Yikes, once again idiots are counting on both sides of their wishes to occur. He wants to tax people to change their actions. But at the same time he is counting on getting the tax money as if they won't change their actions. This is similar to cigarette taxes. Jack up taxes to keep people from smoking, but budget as if you get the increased tax at the same sales level and then cry when people don't smoke enough to pay your budgeted taxes.

[mrmargaritaville]

I think he also needs to put a $1 per roll of toilet paper tax on all TP. It could help fund their waste water treatment plants also generate general revenue. People in NY City are so full of crap that it won’t be long until NYC is swimming in black ink.

[Oatka]

Par for a city who fines its citizens $50 for “improper use” of a plastic dairy box (the guy was sitting on it) or $60 for sitting on the subway stairs.

Next step, a “breath tax” for exhaling CO2.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Political philosophy aside, this would slow down grocery lines a lot, and in many parts of NYC, they already tend to be very very long. I simply gave up shopping at the Whole Foods at Columbus Circle because every time I went in to pick up a couple of items, I found myself at the end of a line so long you literally couldn’t see the cash registers from the end. I once counted over 70 people in line ahead of me — but I had to get out of line and walk around the corner to the area where the registers are to finish counting! Not all stores are anywhere near that bad, of course, but they’re mostly cramped and crowded, and New Yorkers are pretty speed-focused.

[quintr]

Couldn’t Bloomberg come up with anything but a whole new definition for “nickel bag?” The pot smokers are gonna love that one for its lack of subtlety.

[Sopater]

But we should be able to cash in our plastic bags for carbon credits since the petroleum based plastic used to make the bags is captured carbon that won’t go out and pollute our fragile atmosphere as C02 gas.

[JerseyHighlander]

This is worse than the mafia’s monopoly shakedowns.
If any institution or group of individuals tried this as private citizens they would be arrested on dozens of RICO and racketeering charges.
Princeling Bloomberg the First however is the iron fist of the law. His bowel movements are regularly bronzed and put on display in the MOMA I hear.