Will wonders never cease? New York’s City Council is actually debating a tax hike?
The council’s recent hearing on whether to impose a 10-cent fee on paper and plastic grocery bags pits “green progressives” against “economic progressives,” i.e. those who see bag fees as a regressive tax upon the poor and working class.
Which it is. The fee could add as much as $3 a week to the average New Yorker’s shopping bill. That may not mean much for Upper West Siders. But Bushwick?
Indeed, a wide-ranging Reason Foundation study this year on anti-paper and plastic bag policies across the country found that bag bans, taxes and fees — besides having negative consequences for the environment — adversely impact the poor.
This progressive bid to charge New Yorkers more for using plastic bags, moreover, comes at the same moment city progressives are waging a war to politicize waste removal in general.
If they have their way, decisions about where to locate and how to transport trash will not be based on science or efficiency but notions of progressive “justice.”
There are many ways to reduce New York’s trash, and the best begin with a hard look at an inefficient Department of Santitation that helps make waste removal here far more expensive than it need be.
If our pols were serious, instead of seeking to impose a new fee, they’d be looking to turn over more of the job to a private sector that has proved it can do it with much more recycling at a much lower cost.