The Heritage Foundation usefully blows the whistle on a new 35-cent tax on each ton of paper, to be imposed by the Department of Agriculture under the guise of a "marketing fee" to fund "educational activities, information and programs designed to enhance and broaden the understanding of the use and attributes of paper and paper-based packaging." Such marketing fees are apparently authorized under a 1996 law.
The Heritage post doesn't make any comparisons to the Stamp Act, which was a similar tax on paper (albeit imposed without representation) that Great Britain imposed on its North American colonies and that helped to launch the American revolution.
Let's hope the USDA personnel responsible for this tax are furloughed as a result of the shutdown.
The Heritage post makes the point that after years of the government telling us to help the environment by using less paper, we're now going to be taxed to be told to use more paper.