The city of Roanoke intends to ask the General Assembly for permission to either ban or impose a fee upon plastic shopping bags. The city’s transportation department told the council that “…picking up plastic bags along rights of way before mowing was taking more time than the actual mowing.” Oh, and it might be good for the environment, too. Picking up on the idea, the Virginian-Pilot argues for an outright ban to the noxious bags.
This was all very interesting to read, considering that most newspapers are home-delivered in…plastic bags. But neither the Roanoke Times nor the Virginian-Pilot have called for the banning of those plastic threats to the earth.
This should come as no surprise. Newspapers often advocate banning, taxing, regulating or limiting someone else’s freedoms, enterprises and livelihoods. The New York Times is famous for its advocacy of campaign finance reform…so long as its speech-limiting provisions never apply to newspapers. Virginia’s big newspapers have long advocated hikes in sales, gas and other taxes.
It’s for our own good, you see.
But there was one time, way back in 2004, when a group of Virginia Republicans banded together to give the editorial pages, and a few other businesses, a dose of their own tax-hike medicine.
It was during the protracted struggle between anti-tax House Republicans, pro-tax Senate Republicans and “I’ll take whatever tax hike I can get” Gov. Mark Warner. So infuriated did a group of House members become over the drumbeat for more revenue that they introduced a bill that would have eliminated several sales tax exemptions, from airlines and taxi cabs to telecommunication, shipping and printing companies. The targeted companies howled at the “punishing” proposal.
It passed the House, but died in the Senate. Interestingly, then-Del. Bob McDonnell voted with House Democrats against the measure.
A year later, then Del. Leo Wardrup proposed eliminating the newspaper exemption from the state’s hated BPOL tax. His reasoning? Newspapers were the only retail operators in the state exempted from the tax. In reality, he was still smarting over their cheerleading role in the tax hike fight the year before. Newspapers weren’t pleased. His effort failed.
What does any of this have to do with plastic bags? If newspaper editorialists are genuinely concerned about the costs, economic, environmental and otherwise, of plastic bags, they should begin by evaluating their own use of them before urging a ban on the bags use by others.
Or they could wait until some legislator with a bit of spare time and an axe to grind decides to expose their hypocrisy for all to see.
