Election Lesson Not Learned: Lame Duck Democrats Rush to Tax the Web

Seton Motley | Less Government | Less Government.org
And the Blue Should Be
Dictating Tax Increases?

Election 2014 was a gi-normous repudiation of the Democrat tax-and-spend, go-it-alone-government-knows-best model.

For everyone except Democrats.

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Soon-to-be-ex-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is certainly a part of the Oblivious Caucus.

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The tension represented something more fundamental than money – it was indicative of a wider resentment among Democrats in the Capitol of how the president was approaching the election and how, they felt, he was dragging them down.

Of course the President was a huge part of the problem. But for Senator Reid’s left-hand-man to apparently place the blame solely elsewhere is quite a good bit of wishful thinking.

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Now we face a lame duck Congressional session. Where some seriously terrible things could happen to We the People – foisted upon us in large part by a frustrated, repudiated Nevada lawmaker.

Harry Reid Remains Obstinately, Perversely Insistent on Taxing the Internet

(T)he House…passed – by mega-bipartisan voice vote acclimation – the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act (PITFA). (Which ends forever governmentsability to tax Internet access – the current moratorium expires December 11.)

“(T)he law has attracted large bipartisan majorities every time it’s been up for a vote in either house. That’s because the law has allowed the Internet to grow into an engine of interstate and international commerce.

Except Senator Reid won’t allow the bill up for a vote in his Senate. Unless he can tether it to a whole new Internet tax scheme….

“A new Senate bill may force lawmakers this week to make a tough choice on internet taxes: they must agree to expand the reach of sales taxes on out-of-state retailers, or else see the end of a law that forbids states and cities from imposing a tax on internet access.

“…Instead of putting (PITFA) to the Senate, however, Reid has decided to attach it to a proposed law called the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA). That bill, which first passed the Senate last year, would require online retailers to collect tax on sales they make to out-of-state consumers.

Get that? Under the MFA, uber-tax-happy states like California would no longer be confined to taxing into oblivion just Californians. They’d have access to the wallets of every business – every person – in all fifty states.

Turning Huge Government states into additional Huge Government federals. And tempting Less-Huge-Government states to grow – with the siren song of new coin taken from people in forty-nine states that can’t vote against them.

Again, Senator Reid’s Tax-’Em-All approach was just last week resoundingly defeated. He insists on continuing to afflict us with it anyway.

So too does the Obama Administration.

Reclassification Net Neutrality Could Be a 16.1% Internet Tax

(Federal Communications Commission) FCC Chairman Wheeler is contemplating…Title II Internet Reclassification. Which is a huge new regulatory monstrosity. Andsurprise:

“…(O)nce ‘internet access servicesare reclassified as ‘interstate telecommunications servicesunder the exclusive authority of FCC, it will be subjected to the 16.1% fee that’s currently applicable to such services.

So FCC’s ‘Net Neutralitycould result into the largest single tax increase on internet to date.

And that huge tax rate goes up every quarter automatically.

What does President Obama want his FCC to do? Of course – the largest tax-increasing power grab possible.

I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act….

Real journalist Major Garrett – now of CBS News and National Journal – made this excellent point after the last huge Republican wave election – in 2010:

“You (President Obama) didn’t raise taxes in a lame duck session when you had 59 Democrats in the Senate and almost 260 in the House.

“Don’t expect Republicans to raise taxes when (they) own the House of Representatives and have six more Senate seats. As a matter of politics that doesn’t work.

After Election 2014, Republicans have at the very least a majority 226 House seats and at the very least a majority 53 Senate seats – the latter a pick up of at least eight.

They should be asked to raise taxes now?

Remember when President Obama said “Elections have consequences?”

Remember when Senator Reid said “Elections have consequences?”

Remember when Democrat (Socialist) Senator Bernie Sanders said “Elections have consequences?”

Remember when Leftist “journalists”Rachel Maddow and Ezra Klein said “Elections have consequences?”

They apparently do not.

Editor’s Note: This first appeared in Human Events.

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