This month, the Los Angeles city council is expected to ban single-use plastic bags. “[T]he ban is an attempt by the city to reduce litter,” says the Los Angeles Daily News. But it is likely to reduce something else: jobs.
“[A] city ban could prompt the layoff of between 20 and 130 employees” at Crown Poly, a plastic bag manufacturer in L.A., according to the Los Angeles Times. Hundreds more could be at risk in the city.
In response to the likely ban, at risk employees have been in front the city council, explaining their argument for keeping bags legal. This video shows what they told the council and how they were received:
"I'm a single mother and my family depends on me and my income that Crown Poly provides for myself," one lady tells the council in the video. "Besides the health insurance that Crown Poly provides for me, it provides for my children as well."
The video text reads: "But some elected officials ignore the real harms of a ban, equating workers to horse and buggy makers."
"So if we were here a hundred years ago," city council member Paul Koretz is quoted as saying, "would we be saying, 'We must not produce automobiles because buggies and buggy whips will--manufacturers won't have jobs anymore?' Of course we wouldn't."
The pro-bag ban argument is fatuous, however.
Consider the San Francisco case, which outlawed the bags in 2007. "San Francisco did a survey and found that 0.6 percent of its litter was from plastics," the Daily News reports. "After they had a ban, plastics accounted for 0.64 percent of their litter. It made no difference." And in fact plastic, single-use bags are recyclable.
So not only will the bag ban likely not bring down litter, it is likely to cause folks to lose jobs. Is there any wonder California is ranked the worst state for businesses?
A new poll by Rasmussen shows only 44 percent of Americans think cameras at traffic intersections are a good idea, while another 44 percent don't think they are a good idea. But those surveyed are much more supportive of surveillance cameras in police cars and in public spaces:
Anthony Bourdain, celebrity chef and host of the Travel Channel's very popular "No Reservations" does not mince words about the possibility future overbearing salt regulation.
In this otherwise depressing Time piece that, among other creepy sentiments, asserts that "we can be trained" to get by with less sodium and calls salt a dietary "cocaine," Bourdain's delightfully politically incorrect sentiment is, well, the salt and the light.
To use one of the president's favorite words, this expansion of the Nanny State is unprecedented. The federal agency believes that, without further authorization from Congress, it can go ahead and take charge of our palates.
In talking to CPAC this week, George Will noted that the "agenda of dependence" is enabled by trial lawyers, the cultural result being the infantilization of the populace with warning labels like, "Do not fold stroller while child is inside."
If you are a heroin addict in New York, and you want to learn how to shoot up “safely,” there’s a free flier, “Take Charge, Take Care,” produced on the taxpayers’ dime by the health department of the City of New York that will come in handy.
