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If certain state legislators have their way, Connecticut will become the first state to enact a tax on all disposable grocery bags, paper and plastic, at 5 cents a bag. Money raised by the tax would go to support recycling initiatives. Proponents say the state would be helped by the additional funds, and that the tax would encourage people to switch instead to reusable grocery bags, decreasing the amount of long-lived plastic litter and also the amount of trash that needs to be disposed of. Some also point out that carbon dioxide is emitted during the manufacture and transportation of the bags, which they believe is contributing to a dangerous warming of the planet.

Opponents of the bill are all over the idealogical map. In addition to taxing the bags, this bill also prohibits any municipalities from restricting their use (in the future), including banning them. And that has angered environmentalists who think that encouraging the use of reusable bags with a tax is not enough, people must be forced to switch by a complete ban on disposable shopping bags. Others worry that if state recycling programs become dependent on this new tax, then if people really do change their behavior en masse and stop using the disposable bags, the recycling programs will see their funding dry up and find themselves in trouble.

At the other end of the idealogical spectrum, the legislation is decried as yet another supposedly necessary restriction (by price) on freedom of choice. While almost none of us are opposed to all environmental regulations, most of us can probably point to regulations that go too far, or are applied so broadly as to be irrational. (Low flow showerheads are a federal mandate whether you live in a desert or next to a major river, for example.) If we enjoy plastic bags for their convenience or because we reuse them, and we handle them responsibly, why should we be punished for making that choice?

And others say the legislation isn't even necessary - the grocery bags are already recyclable, after all, and are often reused to boot. And, in analogy to the argument against gun control, plastic bags don't litter, people litter. Littering is already a crime. This legislation would impose the tax on all equally, to those who dutifully return every bag to the recycling bin and those who throw them all out with nary a thought, punishing the innocent for the acts of the guilty. And finally, recent surveys by Rasmussen and Gallup have shown that a majority

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