Tax the Bags

The Polyethylene Diet courtesy of Tree Hugger

         Plastic bags have a bad rap. We’re constantly barraged with images of them flitting through our city streets and into the mouths of our turtles. So, in an effort to clean up the streets, cities across the world are banning their use. On June 10^th 2012, Toronto joined the ranks of the uber-environmentally conscious. Even in Texas, a state whose governor argues that environmental rules kill jobs, various cities including South Padre, Brownsville, and Fort Stockton have jumped on the anti-plastic bandwagon.

         While I admire the enthusiastic environmentalism, I think these cities need to be careful about the alternatives they are promoting. If customers decide to start using instead a sturdy, reusable bag (whether fashion chic or purely functional…see below), then excellent! But if paper is still an option, then quite the contrary. Boustead Consulting & Associates Ltd. prepared a report for the Progressive Bag Alliance. According to their findings, paper bags use more fossil fuels and fresh water to produce, require more energy to produce and recycle, have a larger CO2 footprint, and result in more acid rain emissions than plastic bags.

          So what about Austin? It’s a city that uses “263 million plastic bags a year” which “cost the city and taxpayers $850,000 a year to clean up as letter” (Austin American Statesman). In August 2011, the Austin City Council directed staffers to “begin writing a plastic bag ban, with the help of retailers, environmental groups and others” but little has been done since (Austin American Statesman). 

        Here’s my suggestion. I agree with many retailers that an all-out ban of paper (and plastic) would probably result in confusion among customers. In addition, it would unnecessarily punish those that actually choose to reuse plastic bags (when I get them I use them to line a bathroom trashcan) and those who, in the rush of their daily lives, forget their bags. But I think that those individuals who use these bags should have to pay a tax, much like the one Toronto implemented prior to this year’s plastic ban. The amount of the tax is up for debate, but I think $0.10 would provide sufficient incentive to use reusable bags yet not inordinately punish those who forgot their bags. Funds generated through this tax should be directed to an environmental program for preserving Austin nature and wildlife. As additional incentive, I agree with Thomas Bauwens (spokesman for the trade group Plastics Europe) that we “grant customers bonus points on loyalty cards if they decline bags” (New York Times).

        As for the success of previous plastic bag taxes, Ireland implemented a $0.20 tax in 2002 that resulted in a “reduction of about 94 percent in the use of plastic bags” (New York Times). In Washington D.C., a mere $0.05 tax in 2009 resulted in “an 80% reduction in bag use” by 2010 (plasticbaglaws.org).

Fashion Chic Bags by Ecorazzi    

 Functional Reusable Bag by Simply + Green Solutions

Liberal Education Threatens America's Youth

Critique of the dumbing down of America – How Liberalism Destroyed Our Educational System [BLOG] by Robbie Cooper

        Well, if nothing else, this blog post was enlightening. I’ve heard of a number of other downfalls of our educational system, including the inability to fire bad teachers due to overprotective unions, the lack of adequate compensation for good teachers, and even inadequate after-school programs to encourage kids to engage in further learning, but never liberalism. Props for creativity. Robbie Cooper. The basic claim of this post is that the American educational system has undergone a “socialist/communist takeover” resulting in “globally conscious and useful human[s]”; in short, our children have fallen party to “progressive thinking” and it needs to stop. Personally, I find this a compelling argument for sending children to public school. The author, however, disagrees. Instead, he suggests home schooling as an acceptable alternative.

        Given the caricaturized conservative language (“oh hell yeah…war has solved plenty of shit”), I’m going to go ahead and assume that this post is for the benefit of similarly-minded conservatives, the ones that like “dogs, hunting, fishing, [and] building forts in the green belt.”

        Most of the author’s evidence about our supposedly failing educational system is from personal experience and in reference to a book that he has not yet read, although one of his frequent contributors enthusiastically recommends it (“really this old lady has put together a great piece of information here.”) The author’s (and his contributor’s) credibility is thus somewhat questionable.

        Regarding his post’s argument, as compelling as is his laundry list of Republican values, I don’t follow his logic. He wants his child to be “a critical thinker, a self-reliant and self-assured boy who takes responsibility for his own actions…who deeply loves his country…understands that nothing is free…etc.” But how is this mutually exclusive of a public education? If he wants his child to be a critical thinker, he must expose the boy to a variety of different viewpoints. And while I’ll agree public school systems do tend to lean left (war is bad, white men have done a lot of damage historically, etc.), snatching your child out of this system to raise them in a sheltered, ultra-conservative (as I’ll assume by the content of this blog) environment is only going to teach him to preach to the choir, should the boy choose to adopt those same sheltered, ultra-conservative viewpoints. Without a public forum in which to express his views and have those views challenged, the child will be ill-prepared to tactfully deal with others with whom he disagrees. Most of my teachers would have gladly entertained debate with a student over the course material, if only to break up the lull of other students swallowing the information “no questions asked”. If the author thinks his son will be so easily brainwashed, he has too little faith in his child.

        As for homeschooling, I feel the author has little understanding of the scope of the project he has volunteered to undertake for his child. Few parents have the time or the intellectual dexterity to teach their children all the material they need to learn, especially past the elementary level.

        The contributor’s suggestion that the author borrow books from the 1870s borders on silly. In the late 1800s they were missing 55 elements in the periodic table, World Wars I and II had not yet been fought, and…you get the picture.  

        And finally, regarding public education making his son a “girly man,” I’m not going to honor that with a response. 

Military Sexual Assault...Stop It!

Critique of No more tolerance for sexual assault

Editorial Board of Austin American Statesman [NEWSPAPER]

         The title says it all. It’s about time the military acted on their empty promises of dealing with sexual assault. I heartily agree with the authors’ conclusions (few would be brazen enough to contest these claims). The logic is as follows: sexual assault is bad (we can go ahead and take that for granted), it is happening in the military (over 31 female recruits reported sexual harassment or assault in the past year or so at Lackland Air Force Training Base) and it should stop…now. The authors go on to describe how military instructors hold a unique degree of power and that two of the main problems are females’ fear of reprimand and other instructors' fear of falling out of tight-knit groups. The authors suggest that “soul-inhabiting indoctrination” so common to basic training is also an issue. This is an incredibly important point and one that the Editorial Board does well in highlighting. It’s a culture issue. There’s a certain heady feeling of superiority that comes along with military rank (or any rank for that matter) and some individuals are bound to feel entitled to act as they please. And while some degree of physically taxing initiation may be beneficial in teaching discipline and respect, there is a line that cannot be crossed and that line is sexual harassment. This fact has to become part of the military culture. Instructors who witness transgressions should become more fearful of NOT reporting the cases than of reporting them. But before that cultural shift occurs, Lackland and other military institutions must illustrate that they mean to punish the transgressors. And, the authors note, the military is doing so with investigations and the creation of special victims units…albeit years after they should have.

        While I find the article's logic easy to follow and motivating, a few statistics are included at the end of the article that seem a bit questionable (or at least lacking sufficient explanation), including “A Pentagon survey estimated that only 13.5 percent of sexual assaults were reported in 2010. The actual number of sexual assaults that year [at Lackland] may be closer to a shocking 19,000.” While these numbers are compelling, a description of how that 13.5 percent was derived would have made the case much stronger.   

        The authors’ credentials aren’t all too obvious, but they don’t need to be.  Given our national agreement of the heinousness of sexual misconduct, most people who look at the data would come to the same conclusion. And while the authors don’t specifically acknowledge their audience, in all likelihood it’s the general public. Since the military has failed so miserably dealing with its sexual assault problems internally, the plea seems to be going out to the individuals who can better hold the military accountable -- ordinary people. They are the ones who pay taxes and elect officials who have the power to enact legislation and withhold military funding.

Get your act together, military, or the Austin American Statesman will sic the general public on you. 

Texas Medicare Expansion Ain't Happenin'

On June 28, 2012, the Texas Tribune published an article titled With Health Reform Constitutional, What Happens in TX? describing upcoming healthcare choices that will significantly impact Texas' low-income individuals.

Now that Obamacare has been stamped ‘CONSTITUTIONAL’, Texas has some major healthcare decisions to make. One of these decisions is whether to expand Medicaid, the medical services program for low income families. Fortunately for Republicans, the Supreme Court is allowing states to temporarily turn down expansion. States’ Rights 1 : Federal Government…well, 1 also. While Texas would be forfeiting billions of dollars in federal funding by rejecting the expansion, many Lone Star leaders feel uneasy about enrolling more poor adults into a program that takes up a fourth of the state budget and is already billions of dollars short. It’s also about the principle, GOP consultants admit. Most likely the expansion will take place in a few years, after some negotiation with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. However, as much as Texas stalls with this portion of the healthcare bill, millions of dollars are already rolling in to fund other Texas-based health care projects. 

Graphic Courtesy of ThinkProgress 

Trial By Fire