Hey maybe the County should curtail some of that money back to teacher income where the County curtailed teacher raises for the past 3 years. The County is good at curtailing!

Fighting it every step of the way. And encouraging others to fight the behavior modification PROGs of the People's Republic of Montgomery County to do the same. Plan to buy a box of 5000 bags wholesale in another state for my personal use and as gifts for friends.
Pure and simple, this is a just a scam to hijack more money for the general fund and to induce more and more people to follow the dictates of our PROGgy groggy legislators and Council people in their eternal quest to create a generation of pliable sheeple ready to obey any fool thing they're told.
Coming "attractions": Reversal of the county property tax deduction on the horizon, gas tax increased so that we the people can be engineered to ride bicycles, crushing taxes on every item and service known to man.
What's next: a tax on the air we breathe?

This is a regressive tax that hurts the poor and working class. The same goes for the proposed gas tax increase. We can't afford to drop into the Balducci's or Whole Foods Market across the street from our luxury condo and carry a pre-made dinner and a quart of milk home for dinner every day. We have to take out our cars (If we're lucky enough to own one!) load them up with weekly discounted specials at Giant, Safeway, etc. and cart them home to prepare ourselves! If you're elderly, disabled, or both, lugging groceries in your arms in one or two bags (who can afford to buy them on a fixed income?) is difficult if not impossible, especially on foot -- Which will be the case if the "Smart Growth" planners and advocates get their way and recreate the dearth of parking spot nightmare that is the bane of the District and NYC. If they want to live in a filthy crime ridden overcrowded expensive burb, Let 'em move to NY. But the irony is that most of these people who want to dictate our lifestyle live in sprawling McMansions in Potomac or live the single high life in small but pricey apartments in downtown Bethesda where they can AFFORD to patronize the restaurants, high end shops and entertainment venues!
Old and Outraged.

I support recycling and have consistently recycled everything I can, but I oppose the bag tax. Both paper and plastic bags can be (and were) recycled, Paper bags even quickly bio-degrade. There was absolutely no reason to tax paper bags except to try to get people to not use any bags at all.

The tax is also a give-away to business. They get 20% of all the money collected just for collecting the tax. They ought to get no more than the miniscule percent they get to keep of the sales tax. Why are we giving away 20% of the tax money as profit to business rather than using it for the stated goal of improving water quality?

At this point, I think what really needs recycling is the County Council and County Executive, who brought us this ill-designed program.

"User fee", "Revenue tax" call it whatever it is a tax and a plan to modify behavior. The county has no business in my behavior. This argument of "no longer seeing bags in the trees" is used so often I wonder who is issuing the talking points? and, what happened to biodegradable plastic bags? and, an individual business' plan to discourage non-disposable bags, that is, Whole Foods reimbusing the customer for having their own bags but NEVER penalizing them if they had none, like the county is now doing.

But at the core of this is my reminder - at election time, remember who voted for this and vote them all out! So far the only one I have seen who opposed it and continues to opppose it is/was Nancy Floreen. The rest of them can start packing their bags.

I oppose littering......
I oppose the bag tax.......

The Bag Tax is just another irritant from Montgomery County who KNOWS we are all so stupid we need the Commissioners to tell us how to carry groceries , how to flush the toilet and when and where to drive and park.
It is just so annoying to purchase an item and pay to place it in a plastic bag.
I know that the money will go to nought-it will be placed in a " good" fund and then taken to pay for a Commissioner's car or some other non-useful expenditure.
I only wish there was an election tomorrow so I could vote them all out for being so outrageous and controlling but int eh meantime I try NOT to shop where stupidity reigns.

I think the littering laws should be strenously enforced.
I think the bag tax should be repealed. The penny per bag the retailers get to keep seems more like it's to pay them off to endure the complaints of customers inconvenienced by the bag tax.
I'm wondering when the administrative and enforcement costs will outstrip the proceeds from the bag tax. I'm confident that it will then become a permanent line item in the County operating budget. I hope County Exec Leggett will fill us in on that.

Amen to Woodside Park Bob's thoughtful and dead-on commentary!!!

I haven’t yet softened my stand against any so called “bag” tax and I don’t think I ever will! As I read the review of the revenues this tax has reaped I wonder if the same couldn’t be said if the tax were on our blood cells. You know, tax people’s blood cells! We’ve got so many, imagine what the first month’s revenues might be. Of course there will be an adjustment period for some that eventually will accept it, and some people may never be able to adjust to it, BUT just think of the revenue! If revenue were the only justification necessary for a tax then taxing blood cells is not only ingenious, the revenue will more than justify it! AND, it might encourage people to donate blood more often – less blood cells to tax!

I have not softened my stand on the bag tax. Anybody with half a brain knows that this whole idea is just another "hide in the dark" method of squeezing more money out of the residents. DC was successful at getting it passed and MoCounty followed suit, and now PG is jumping on the wagon. I don't understand why the people of this country have become so lazy and have lost interest in standing up for what they believe in. We let this pass. Don't get surprised when they decided they need some more money to pay for all the salaries and useless spending thats inflating the budget -- next on the list will be making us pay .20 per hour for the air we breathe. And we'll all sit back and complain to ourselves instead of saying enough is enough and fight back!

Plastic bags and bottles are costing Montgomery County taxpayers millions of dollars each year (and costing PG and DC taxpayes a lot too since much of our trash is washed into their communities). If you want to have that type of life style, fine but don't ask me and the county taxpayers to subsidize your life style. Pay the fee and leave the taxpayers alone.

If Montgomery County residents would just stop being so damn lazy and bring their own bags with them when they shop, we would not be throwing our money away like this. Let's not give the county satisfaction out of screwing us over. BRING YOUR OWN BAGS OR SHOP IN ANOTHER COUNTY!!!! When they are not receiving as much revenue, they will abolish it and move on to taxing some other frivilous thing.

Jeff,
I am in total agreement with you! Montgomery County and the State of Md.
are taxing this retired soul into the ground even though I do bring my own bag or bags with me for every purchase I make.

We live in Bethesda and now go to Northern Virginia to do a lot of our shopping. No bag tax = no worries! I have managed to pay the bag tax once and that was at a retail store. It amazes me that people walk in and out of department stores with clothes, shoes, etc. Who is watching people to make sure they are not shoplifting? Are the residents of Montgomery County going to made liable due to an uprise of thefts in the County? This ridiculous bag tax is going to lead to more significant issues in our future and not just litter in our streets.

To be totally honest, I find it interesting how many people now choose to go outside the county for their shopping. Even more interesting are those who readily admit it's to avoid the bag tax.

Realistically, how much more money are you spending on gas by going out of MoCo to shop than by staying in-county and paying 50 cents for 10 bags (if you even need that many)?

I don't know about you, Greg, but from our house in Bethesda to No. VA, it's only about 15 minutes. If we do shopping, dining, etc., we don't waste $ on gas, etc. VA also has 5% tax as opposed to MD with 6%, so on high ticket items we actually pay less. We go outside the County to prove a point, not because we can't afford paying for a bag here or there. It's a ridiculous tax and if we stood our ground and didn't pay the tax perhaps the County would abolish it.

It never fails that half the time I spontaneously end up going shopping and then also end up carrying way too many groceries, dropping half of them because the bag that I used 'last time' was left in the house after unpacking from a previous trip. I also expect that shop lifting will rise ... how is a retailer to know whether someone paid for something when they're walking around with items out of a bag. Alternatively, it's a whole lot easier for people to shop lift when walking into a store with an empty bag. Is any county authority collecting any data on that, with the associated financial implications? All said, like many others I too am shopping as much as possible now out of the county. This recycling of bags has little to do about helping the consumer, saving the environment ... it's all about more money into the county coffers!

reusable bags called norovirus outbreak in oregon:

http://maximumnewsinformer.com/?p=7473

I'm just visiting MoCo. When I was told about the bag tax as I was buying a some drinks, I said to myself "what idiots they are in Maryland." This kind of tax would not be accepted in my part of the country (southeastern NC). Why do you stand for it? Vote the idiots out.

....and when I got back to my hotel, I was told that I could only receive two "free" glasses of beer because the county/state(?) would tax anything more than 2 drinks....something about increasing the value of the stay...therefore more taxes on the increased value....lol...are you kidding me?