California Senate Approves Net Tax Bill

Grant Erickson points to this internet.com story, which says "On Thursday, the California state Senate approved a bill that requires businesses with stores in the state to charge their customers sales tax for purchases made over the Internet." The state's huge ($35 billion) budget deficit is named as a driving force for the measure.

Comments

Re:That is the sound of inevitability....

[pmz]

It's a never ending battle between the republican types (who hate government involvement) and the democratic types who want more centralized/governmental control.

This is an old stereotype that doesn't mean much anymore. Republicans are approximately the same as Democrats with similar levels of soft money contributions and an equal amount of separation from their constituants.

Republicans currently want big government through debatable "Homeland Security" causes.

Democrats currently want big government through naive "feed the poor" causes.

Both are equally misguided and equally wasteful. Call 'em Republocrats or Demolicans--it really doesn't matter.

It is a good time for a third or fourth party to become significant enough to sway votes in congress. Only, then, will the stupidity and polarity of the Bill Clinton impeachment vote, for example, get resolved. Does anyone have the guts to not vote the party line, anymore?

Re:Again California shoots off its own foot.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

If this also passes the assembly it will almost certainly be signed into law - because Gray Davis is clueless about anything financial. (Witness his reaction to the "electric deregulation" debacle.)

Republican govenor Pete Wilson refered to the electricity deregulation bill, as he was signing it [...]

Never said that some Republicans didn't have any blame coming for the way the law was written. (Although Pete Wilson wouldn't qualify as a Republican in most states other than CA. B-) )

But note that I was pointing to Davis' rabid flames at the energy companies for doing exactly what any economist would have told you they'd do, given the structure of the so-called deregulation:

- The energy suppliers letting PG&E bid the price up to astronomical levels whenever there was a crunch - and doing their best to encourage crunches. (Why generate another kilowatt and sell it for a penny, when you could generate half a kilowatt and sell it, and all the others you're generating anyway, for a dime?)

- PG&E runing out of power and money, going belly-up, and requiring a bailout in the billions to keep the lights on at all.

Yes, some energy execs "laundered" some price-controlled generated power through adjacent states. But even without that the incentive structure would have produced much the same result.

Unfortunately they won't...

[DrMorpheus]

I live near several trailer parks and I have to drive through them to reach the city. I see nothing but pro-war signs and dozens upon dozens of flags on the trailers and their tiny little lawns. I know that a lot of them have family in the military but I've talked with more than a few and they also have bought the government lie about the war, the economy (things are going to get better now that Saddam is gone!) and everything else.

So frankly, I don't hold much hope out that they'll remember in November. I'm afraid that we're in for four more 'fears' with King George.