8. Paper or Plastic: Either Way You’ll Pay

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It should come as no surprise that a place like Washington, D.C. would decide to tax shopping bags. After all, a staggering quantity of bureaucratic nonsense is manufactured within the confines of that city every year. The 5-cent-per-bag tax was supposedly introduced to help clean up the Anacostia River, and has already generated some $7 million. Like all taxes, it will never go away, and district residents can expect to keep on paying that tax even if the Anacostia is clean enough to drink from some day.