Bag Tax Failing

In terms of revenue generation, this is leaving yet another hole in Rahm's budget:

• Cook County’s soda tax may have been stalled by a court order, but Chicago’s tax on disposable bags — in effect for six months — is not bringing in as much cash as the city had hoped.
  
  Chicago aimed to raise $9.2 million from the 7-cents-a-bag fee in its first year. As of collection on June 18, the tax has raised nearly $2.4 million in the nearly five months since it took effect; that leaves it well off the mark, said Molly Poppe, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Finance.

Here's comes the spin though:

• That aside, the tax has had a significant environmental impact thus far, reducing disposable bag use per shopping trip by 42 percent in its first month, according to a preliminary April study.

So it's a success "environmentally." You know what? The neighborhoods where the re-usable bags are most prevalent? Those weren't the neighborhoods where the plastic bags were blowing down the streets and alleys, hanging in trees all winter, clogging street gutters and sewers. But "bag man" Rahm and "water bottle" Daley and soon, "soda" Prickwrinkle) are learning a strange reality:

• When it makes economic sense for people to travel a little farther to save money, they're going to travel.
  

And when they travel, they're going to do some of their regular shopping there, too. And gas their cars. And buy their smokes. And their liquor. And a gun, maybe some ammunition. And maybe a big ticket item to ship back home. And then, Illinois is making it easier to leave the State completely and permanently by raising income taxes 32%.

Not amusingly, that money was already spent. The city, county and state base their budgets on "expected revenues. And when those revenues fail to materialize, they raise fees, taxes or fines, especially in a democrat run state. Spending is sacrosanct and cannot be touched.