New York Water Bottle Tax

It was announced recently in New York their would be a new water bottle tax. The way it works is when you are purchasing a water bottle such as poland spring, at the point of sale, you will be charged an additional five cents. This new tax is suppose make buyers bring their empty water bottles to the store and redeem them for their nickle back. The water bottles will be reused and hopefully people will pollute less, protecting the environment. There's talk about adding this tax to all juice, soda, and beer bottles.

I know a nickle does not sound like much but I drink at least one water bottle a day. This ends up being $18.25 a year that I would rather spend elsewhere (assuming I can't lug my water bottles back to stop and shop). Stuff like this makes me feel like the governments job is to steal our hard earned money through inflation and tax and limit our rights through new laws. I'm for saving the environment but every time the government wants to do something it comes from new taxes or raising taxes. The better way to achieve this would be to raise the deposit fee. Screw the tax and give each recycler an additional nickle or dime. The additional nickle or dime will be spent helping the economy and will make people happier. Not everyone will have the chance to bring back every water bottle.

A wise man once said "you are guaranteed only two things in life, death and taxes."

Now you pay an addition 5 cents, then you have to bring your water bottles back and get your nickle back. If your like me, we have a yellow garbage can in front of our homes that is filled with recyclable items. Now we have to sort through our recyclable items and bring the water bottles back to stop and shop or other stores to get our nickle back. Extra work for us.

Correct me here if Im wrong but right now its my understanding that you are charged an extra nickle then when the bottle is returned you get your nickle back. We use to not get charged the nickle and get a nickle back for returning the water bottles. Water bottles were also cheaper at one point meaning that nickle brought you that much closer to a another water bottle. in fact at one point during the 1960's soda bottles were 7 cents and when you would return them you would get one cent back. every 7 you get one free. Now our only incentive to recycle is to cover the cost of the additional tax. It makes you feel like something is wrong.

Another thing I don't like about this new tax is most taxes go up over time. There is a good chance of this tax increasing over time. Every time you feel like your getting ahead there is new taxes or tax increase. Taxation destroys wealth hurts the economy, hurts the tax payer, and funds a bunch of useless government projects. Maybe the people should march to Washington and demand money and less taxes like the way aig, gm and a bunch of other companies did. We survived as nation with few laws and few or no taxes or decades, why not try this way of life. If we lasted this long with out this new tax why do we need it now. Just have Obama address the nation with the importance of recycling and maybe an incentive or higher incentive and I'm sure there will be an increase in recycled products. Obama haters will like the fact that hes doing something for the environment that wont hurt the tax payer.