Kudos to Gov. Cuomo for signing the Legislature’s bill to kill the city’s 5-cent plastic bag “tax” for at least another year. But why open the door to a statewide fee?
The fee on grocery bags is just a pander to ignorant green prejudice. The bags are in fact a trivial part of the waste stream, and most people — especially in the city — reuse them, if only for bagging up their trash.
Alternatives are more costly, time-consuming, unhealthy and/or inconvenient. Notably, “reusable” bags — ones you must bring with you to the store — can harbor harmful bacteria unless cleaned thoroughly and regularly.
The “bag tax” also clearly hits lower-income people the hardest: That’s why the bills to override the fee won bipartisan support in the Legislature.
But Cuomo is always loath to upset the greens. So the gov first tried to work out some “compromise,” then justified signing the bill by slamming it as a “$100 million per year windfall profit for merchants.”
Worse, he announced he’d set up a task force to look at whether to ban plastic and paper carry-out products, tax plastic bags or provide consumers with reusable bags.
Beware: If he relies on the “experts” the City Council used, he’ll get the same answer.
New Yorkers could wind up back at square one — except facing a statewide fee.
Cuomo was right to stop the tax, which was to take effect Wednesday. Let’s hope he doesn’t go ahead with his “study” and wind up undoing his good deed.
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