NYC Proposes New Bill For Residents To Pay A $3 Surcharge For Delivered Packages

A groundbreaking bill proposal from New York City’s elected braintrust would have us forking over $3 for delivery packages to help keep the MTA alive:

NBC New York

Under a new proposed bill, New York City residents would be required to pay a $3 surcharge on packages they ordered online, with the exception for medicine and food.

Assemblyman Robert Carroll, who proposed the bill, says the online shopping fee would raise more than $1 billion a year “to fund the operating costs of buses and subways in the city of New York.”

Yeah, good luck New York. Tough to get people to pay $3 per box to bail out the MTA when we’re hearing stories of MTA workers who make $461,000/year while bowling. I don’t care if it’s a few bad apples; nobody should be paid that much to bowl. Hell, Walter Ray Williams Jr. took home $419,700 for his 2002-2003 PBA season and that still stands as the highest-grossing season for a bowler EVER. I don’t know much about this train fella, but I guarantee Walter Ray would whoop the gloss off his ball (really unfamiliar with bowling lingo).

Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for a box surcharge. Amazon has made shipping such a joke that the poor super in our building can barely keep up with the recycling. Guy is folding and bundling faster than those Rubiks Cube contests. I know those kids don’t fold the cubes, but that’s the fastest I’ve ever seen hands move. Point is, we need to make it a little harder for people to have toothpaste arrive on Monday, deodorant on Tuesday, and the Obama autobiography on Wednesday because you keep remembering new items you want AFTER you’ve hit checkout.

The bill actually pitches that idea:

They argued that the surcharge would incentivize New Yorkers to support small local businesses instead of buying from corporations like Amazon or Walmart.

“A delivery surcharge will also undoubtedly encourage consumers, and the Amazons of the world, to more regularly consolidate multiple items into a single package for delivery,” they wrote.

Problem is, nobody cares. The small business idea is toast. COVID stopped people from leaving their houses to hit the corner store for anything at all. Consolidating might gain legs in cities that actually care about trees. But for the most part, people will continue to buy from Amazon, and no New Yorker will ever want to cough up more money for the MTA. Sorry guys, I’ll cut all Amazon orders out of my life before I spend a DIME financing your bowling league.

PS- hey Assemblyman Carroll, if you’re looking for some more tax revenue, I have a totally whacky idea that rhymes with “smiegalize hweed” that might help. Just saying, it’s worked elsewhere.