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US House Votes To Renew Internet Tax Ban
Talen317 writes with news that the US House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly to renew the ban on taxing Internet access — but only for 4 years, not permanently. A majority of House members (238) co-signed the bill to make the moratorium permanent. Republicans blamed the House leadership for refusing to bring this latter bill to a vote, charging that the Democrats wanted to leave the door open for future taxation. Not so, countered Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), one of the sponsors of the 4-year bill. The Senate must act on the moratorium before Nov. 1 if taxation is to be avoided, and Watt claimed that a permanent ban would be dead on arrival in the Senate.
RTFA -
It is a federal law banning state and local governments from taxing the net. That is useful to prevent artificial "tariff boundaries" that have no real relevance. Of course the definition of physical presence in a state for sales tax still applies, but that becomes an issue only for large web vendors with distribution centers (or other such offices) in multiple states.
DMCA - Chilling free speech since 1998.
The Democrats are in control of the Senate and House. They are the ones that set the day-to-day agenda, have majorities on subcommittees and can block voting on bills. The Republicans can only block a vote by filibustering. Read the following articles and you will see exactly why I blame the Democrats for blocking the bill: Because the Democrats are blocking the bill. It isn't up for debate; it is a verifiable fact.
http://www.user-groups.net/safenet/internet_tax.html [user-groups.net] http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/014895.php [captainsquartersblog.com] http://public.cq.com/docs/cqt/news110-000002605139.html [cq.com] http://www.congress.org/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=10412161 [congress.org]