D.C. GOP Fights Bag Tax, Lose, Demonstrate No Understanding of Irony.

The irony is this...

The purpose of the disposable bag tax is to get people to use reusable bags (which are far better for the environment; something that liberals care about).

The Republican way to protest the bag tax is to produce reusable bags.

When the protest against the tax does exactly what the tax was intended to do-- how is this not irony?

ebrown p wrote:

The irony is this...

The purpose of the disposable bag tax is to get people to use reusable bags (which are far better for the environment; something that liberals care about).

The Republican way to protest the bag tax is to produce reusable bags.

When the protest against the tax does exactly what the tax was intended to do-- how is this not irony?

The Republicans don't want to pay a tax. They sell a reusable bag that allows their partisans to avoid paying the tax. How is that irony?

The Republicans don't want to pay a tax. They sell a reusable bag that allows their partisans to avoid paying the tax. How is that irony?

The ironic part is that this is the entire point of the tax. The Republicans are protesting the decision by engaging in the desired behavior.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

The ironic part is that this is the entire point of the tax. The Republicans are protesting the decision by engaging in the desired behavior.

I don't see any Republicans arguing that the tax won't spur people to use reusable bags. If they did, and then started selling reusable bags of their own, then it would be ironic. But nobody's making that argument, as far as I know. The GOPers aren't saying that the tax is ineffective, they're just saying that they don't want to pay it, and their solution is perfectly aligned with their position.

Republicans complaining endlessly about taxes and then not paying them hardly qualifies as a "man bites dog" type of story. The only twist here is that the bag tax is clearly intended to influence behavior rather than raise revenue, but then that just puts the bag tax into an already enormous category of tax measures that are primarily intended to encourage "positive" social choices. It's not much of a surprise, though, to discover that Republican behavior is influenced in a way that Democratic lawmakers intended when they passed the tax. I don't see that as Republicans agreeing with Democrats.

Who cares whether they 'agree' or not?

The whole point of the tax is that people don't want to pay it. They are essentially agreeing with the Dem position.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Who cares whether they 'agree' or not?

Uh, you did.

Cycloptichorn, just a little while ago, wrote:

The whole point of the tax is that people don't want to pay it. They are essentially agreeing with the Dem position.

I agree with the above poster, that your nitpicking misses the point of the entire thread.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I agree with the above poster, that your nitpicking misses the point of the entire thread.

There's always that possibility, and it certainly wouldn't be the first time. But I think the point of the thread is that the Republicans are somehow being inconsistent on this issue, and I just don't think they are. Of course, if TKO would come back and explain why he created this thread, then maybe we could get a clearer idea of what his point was. That is, unless you are TKO, in which case I defer to your better-informed judgment.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I agree with the above poster, that your nitpicking misses the point of the entire thread.

There's always that possibility, and it certainly wouldn't be the first time. But I think the point of the thread is that the Republicans are somehow being inconsistent on this issue, and I just don't think they are. Of course, if TKO would come back and explain why he created this thread, then maybe we could get a clearer idea of what his point was. That is, unless you are TKO, in which case I defer to your better-informed judgment.

This is like Walmart who is now (in some parts of the country) charging 5 cents per bag.

Joe, the irony here is that...

When you examine the conservative belief that less taxes are better, it is supported by the argument that people are better of and happier when they have more of their money.

A real conservative stance that would have made sense would have been to not blow a bunch of money on ultra expensive bags, but rather to encourage people who don't support the fee to simply buy the cheep reusable bags that were already available.

This stance would have protected the consumer from the fee they object to, and kept more money in the consumers pocket (the original rationale for hate hate hating taxes). Instead, for the for price of one bag (and you know when you go shopping you only buy enough stuff to fit in one bag), you could simply pay the fee and have up to 500 bags. Basically, it's stupid because the bag takes forever to pay itself off, when you could get 5 reusable bags for the same price which their combined volume would actually be practical and would pay for themselves in a much shorter time.

The irony is when you zoom out on the party that likes to think of itself as being fiscally conservative, they seem to only know how to waste money opposing good ideas and in the end using the ideas (like using a reusable bag) to combat a liberal idea (like using a reusable bag).

Money from this is supposed to go to cleaning the Anacostia river, and in the end the GOP bag's price was basically a donation the GOP.

Does the GOP hate the environment so much that they want to prevent any money from getting to projects like this (that also ironically would classify as infrastructure improvements and help raise the property values in South East DC)?