Which makes better sense to you? A tax incentive to reduce consumption or to outlaw the use everywhere in our Nation?
The Chicago Tribune article titled, Pritzker’s Bag Tax Idea Not an Easy Sell, reported the Illinois Governor wants to implement a State 5 cent tax for every plastic bag user in the State, similar to Chicago’s tax.
The Purpose of This Post
Is to examine which choice makes more better common sense what to do in a Nation with Rights and Freedom for everyone including some who are either sluggard or detached, to proven environmental hazards, including fearful politicians.
Words Related to Detached, Merriam-Webster
indrawn, introverted, nongregarious, recessive, reclusive, reserved, unsocial, withdrawn
apathetic, hard, indifferent, unconcerned
clinical, dispassionate, impersonal, professional
disinterested, incurious, uninterested
reticent, silent, taciturn, uncommunicative
King Solomon, Chapter 24
I went past the field of a sluggard,
past the
vineyard of someone who has no sense;
31 thorns
had come up everywhere,
the
ground was covered with weeds,
and the
stone wall was in ruins.
32 I applied
my heart to what I observed
and
learned a lesson from what I saw:
33 A little
sleep, a little slumber,
a little
folding of the hands to rest—
34 and
poverty will come on you like a thief
and
scarcity like an armed man.
What’s My Point?
Every politician knows the environmental effects of plastic grocery bags, yet they ponder what to do, fearful of losing voters in the next election or to become identified as a violator of the Rights and Freedoms of the people they are supposed to be making wise decisions for them, our Nation, and our World.
So, the new governor of Illinois, being elected in a State on the verge of bankruptcy, has decided that since Chicago is now taxing the use of plastic bags and receiving money, he is proposing to do the same for the entire State.
In other words, provide an incentive to stop using plastic bags instead of just passing a law to ban the use of a proven environmental hazard.
In My Opinion,
Frankly, I believe incentives are effective way to motivate people.
However, if I was a politician fearful of the effects of being identified as a villain every time a person goes to the grocery store and is too lazy to carry a reusable bag, I wonder if it would be better to just to what should have been done years ago and outlaw the use of a bag.
Hopefully, the voters won’t be reminded as often and may even forget or forgive their politician same as they often do now when they vote like a rote in Chicago for the same political party over and over and over again.
My wife used cloth bags and would put them in the car trunk after bringing home the groceries to use the next time she shopped. However, she, like many people became sluggard in her resolve, so now she just uses the bags and puts them in the recyclable’s garbage container where the use in recycling plants is birdmen because they clog up machinery.
If Interested,
Read the article and a Forbes article about plastic.
You Decide
Which of the above Meriam Webster synonyms for detached would you use for yourself if you still use plastic grocery bags?
Which choice makes better political sense, tax or ban if you were a politician?
Which choice makes better long-term environmental sense?
Would King Solomon judge we are sluggards if he walked past the USA or saw an island the size of a State of plastic bags floating around in the ocean?
Regards and good will blogging.
Source Links
Chicago Tribune
Forbes
An island of Plastic Bags in Ocean True or False?
Rudy u Martinka 
If you are reading this today, Rudy.. consider watching Smerconish on CNN today (probably later this afternoon to you). He discusses recycling (which I have always personally held as impractical). Not related to this topic.. he also discusses prostitution in the wake of this Kraft thing.. something I profoundly have said for decades should have been made legal decades ago… but only with proper regulation. Good episode.
If it helps.. the loonish public here in CA, believe it or not, voted for the measure to pay for bags at the supermarket a year ago this January. It’s like 10 cents. In the beginning people in grocery lines were defying to pay.. but over the year you just simply surrender to it.. and I have a huge collection of bags I have paid for simply because I always end up at the store not as a planned event to bring bags.. or I get in the store for a specific item and end up buying many.. and I left the bags in the car. I should point out that here you are not paying 10 cents for one of those cheap and flimsy grocery bags.. these are more hefty and nothing pokes through them that easily.
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I am going to write a follow up post on the issue of plastic grocery bags which u can use to perhaps sue your California politicians for their folly.
Stay tuned.
You may even be glad or lucky to keep forgetting he use those reusable bags.
Regards and goodwill blogging
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Doug,
I just posted by follow up post. Check it out. ot could save your life.
Regards and good will blogging.
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