Poverty pimping the bag tax...

the Loose Lips news daily e-letter from the Washington City Paper reports a blog entry "Disposable Bag Fee Hits Low-Income Residents In the Pocket" and the newly concerned DC Republican Party, which got an op-ed on the topic, "Favoring Morton's over McDonald's"* in the conservative organ, the Washington Times, about the impact on the poor of the 5 cent per shopping bag tax.If you pay the tax once, and reuse the bags (or if you reuse the bags you already have, or you have picked them up outside of the city in a transaction without a fee) you are never out any more money.

WTF?

Anyway, the point in policy isn't to not do good policy because of financial impacts on the poor, but mitigate potential negative impacts on the poor of good policy that has financial implications.

In any case, 5 cents/bag is negligible. Especially if you spend this money on a few bags, even say up to 10, which cost 50 cents total, and you retain the bags and reuse them.

This whining reminds me of how the beverage industry used similar arguments to successfully defeat the imposition of a bottle and can deposit fee through a referendum in DC in 1988. Having come here from Michigan, where a bottle/can deposit law was approved around 1974, and having lived with the "repercussions" through 1987, it seemed like no big deal to me.

* Carryout food takes a bag that costs 5 cents. We will survive. While poor people aren't likely to eat at Morton's, it is not only the "poor" who frequent McDonald's.

-- I Will Survive song by Gloria Gaynor

It's no wonder that people are increasingly disgusted with politics and the level of discourse that permeates the process.