When I got married a few years back, I had wanted to stay in Virginia—where taxes were lower—but my wife wanted to live in Maryland, and so we compromised and moved to Maryland. Montgomery County, Maryland, is Democrat country. Lawn signs proliferate but, like elections in Cuba, they are all for a single party. Still, despite the high taxes and looming pension crisis, the school system is good and I figured, how much harm could a county government do? A lot, it seems. With little debate and even less coverage, Montgomery County passed a law to discourage disposable bags by imposing a 5 cent charge for each plastic or paper bag used. The charge applies not only in supermarkets, but in all stores: Home Depot? Bag charge. Bed, Bath, and Beyond? Bag Charge. Barnes and Noble? Bag charge. Take-out Chinese food? Bag charge.
While county officials justify the bag tax in kindergarten environmentalism, this is nonsense. Most bag users do not litter and there are laws with hefty fines on the books for those who do. Stores provide bags because they are convenient and they encourage shopping, and most consumers recycle them at home. I use the plastic bags for trashcan liners and also to clean up after Neocatservative, our feline armchair warrior.
Government has become predatory, and the fees add up. According to an Associated Press report, county officials raised $154,000 in the first month. With the lack of inquisitiveness only reporters can muster, however, no journalist has asked what the price to business has been. While I still go to the local supermarket if I run out of milk or my pregnant wife demands pomegranates, these I can carry out without a bag. For most of our shopping, however, my wife and I now drive to Virginia where groceries and others goods are usually cheaper. We’re not profligate spenders, but l would estimate that we shifted perhaps $200 worth of food and retail shopping from Montgomery Country, Maryland to Virginia in January.
Now, Montgomery County has around 972,000 residents, 24 percent of whom are under 18 years old, leaving 738,720 adults. If each adult took $100 shopping into a neighboring county, that would mean a loss to county businesses of $73,872,000. Now, obviously not every adult is mobile or motivated enough to shift their shopping pattern. But, if the bag tax is enough to send only 1,540 county adults—a mere 0.21 percent of county adults—into Fairfax, Virginia, or a neighboring Maryland county—then it is obvious that local business will lose. For the county, the bag law might make cents, but for businesses and residents, it makes no sense.
First, Virginia charges a 2.5% food tax, while Maryland has no food tax. As someone who shops in both Virginia and Maryland, usually the food prices are exactly the same, especially in the chain stores. With the food tax food is usually marginally more expensive in Virginia. Second, (and I say this because Commentary claims in some sense to still be a Jewish magazine) there are no kosher stores in Virginia. If you want kosher food you must shop in Maryland, which has the only significant population of observant Jews, to which Rubin does not appear to belong. Third and most importantly, the evidence is that most consumers do not recycle plastic bags. Jewish neoconservatives at one time did not embrace every whacky idea labeled right-wing; they would do well to return to their original roots as Scoop Jackson Democrats wanting a militarily strong America, opposing racial quotas and non-meritocratic education systems and favoring a strong free-market.
Scoop Jackson Democrats are extinct. They (at least the leadership) are all Progressives now, and finding some who are "wanting a militarily strong America, opposing racial quotas and non-meritocratic education systems and favoring a strong free-market" is a unicorn hunt. The only hope of getting those things is to vote Republican.
The County Council's main goal is not to raise revenue; it's to create a nuisance so that people who are inconvenienced can feel they're doing something morally superior. The goal here is to pretend we're helping the environment by punishing ourselves. n nI wish I could mass-produce reusable bags that read "Repeal The Bag Tax / Recycle The County Council." I'd make a fortune by selling them.
mhloutbeltway nI can't speak for Virginia, but kosher shopping is not what it was when I moved here (central Ohio) nearly 30 years ago. There are no kosher stores where I live either, but there is a large, supervised kosher department in one of the chain supermarkets. Before that, if we wanted fresh meat or fish, we drove about 2-1/2 hours to a larger community. But for almost anything else, so many of the national brands and even private label store brands carry reliable hechsherim that a kosher store is not missed except perhaps for Passover shopping.
The reality is that the bag tax is just that, a new tax. It's there to raise additional revenue for Montgomery County and has nothing to do with litter, recycling bags, or anything else. Let's call it what it is: A tax. n nI live in Montgomery County (maybe Michael and I are neighbors?) and I have seen people leave the store with their groceries in their hands. It's demeaning for the shopper, and one that I have done myself not wanting to pay still more taxes than I already do. n nAnd, here's point Michael missed, if you use your own bags there's a danger there. Raw meat and fish can harbor bacteria that can grow and spread in reusable bags. Thus, if you bring your own bag (which was the original stated intent of the law), you have to be careful with raw meat and fish. This point is not discussed, but it should be. Disposable bags, by their nature, were clean and did not harbor dangerous bacteria. Reusable bags can, and if the news stories are correct, often do. n nIn the end, I guess the new tax revenue can be used to inoculate consumers from the diseases of the bacteria that we will have to deal with now. Not a win-win situation, but then the intent was never meant for the good of consumers.
I think it is primarily about liberal narcissism and secondarily about raising revenue for county gov't. hacks.
It occurs to me that the weekly sales circulars also pose a litter hazard. So maybe next (pillageidiot forgive me!) the County Council ought to impose a 5 cent tax on the circulars. Then the council could insist that every store have an electronic version or app available. Then they could require all residents to trade up to smartphones to use the apps. nOnce you get started with taxes and dictating how people live there is no limit to the mischief you can cause.
If it’s so important to take plastic bags out of the waste stream, why not a five cent deposit, like the bottle deposits that have worked well for 30 years or more? Or why not just collect bags in the regular plastic recycling process which every locality in America now has? Once a week, we put out bins of plastic and glass stuff. How hard could it be to pick up plastic bags (perhaps requiring that they be bagged like the leaves that are also picked up at curbside by most municipalities)?
I suspect that a nickel tax will not move many shoppers to avoid plastic bags — but the county will pocket the money from another regressive tax.
Good to know there is a special hell for regulation-addicted bureaucratic micromanagers who pile needless burdens on others for their self-satisfaction for their addiction of powermongering. n nThank You, Lord God Jehovah. Psalm 109
Rubin, you should demand an upgrade to your wife's Left misalignment and Secular Jewish Leftist Progressive Genetic Disorder, or get a new model. I personally would not put up with it. Perhaps you need some testosterone implants. Confronting your mother for making you matrico-centric and "other directed" may be too late. Assert you maskyoualinsky.