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.

Comments

Re:Until end of the world according to Mayan Calen

[IndustrialComplex]

Even if they do, wouldn't that make it a bit hard for them to collect taxes?

Almost modded that...

[RingDev]

I was just going to mod you flame bait, but I figured I'd do the more appropriate thing and ask you to provide a site of your statement. If you fail to provide one, I'll just flame you myself. What's a little karma in exchange for proper moderating?

-Rick

Re:Nothing is "permanent" when it comes to laws

[WhyDoYouWantToKnow]

Not to mention that in four years they (Congress) get to show their support for the ban all over again. Thus ensuring votes from the soundbite voters. It would be very poor politics to make the ban permanent.

Re:Taxes are neither good nor bad

[phantomlord]

The problem with sin taxes is once you start taxing based on perceived negative behavior, you set a precedent to tax other perceived negative behaviors. Sin tax on using net access for more than two hours a day(because you might be at home playing WoW, eating junk food and are likely to have coronary disease)? Sin tax for eating fast food (such as buying a salad at McDonalds while that all you can eat spaghetti over at the local italian joint isn't subject)? Sin taxes (beyond generic sales tax) on all that pop that is rotting your teeth, giving you migraines and disrupting your sleep? Sin taxes on television since it means you're likely to spend 4 hours a day watching it instead of doing something to benefit yourself or your community?

If you want to do anything other than live in a hut in the woods, growing your own food and jogging for recreation, negative effects of your behavior can be found. Crap, you said anti-social behavior behavior is lumped in with the sins so I guess we have to sin tax your hut too.

My point is that there will always be (more or less valid) reasons to modify other people's behaviours. If you don't like my behavior, ignore it! Nobody is forcing you to consume a big mac with me. Nobody is forcing you to be gay just because that couple over there is. What, you don't want to pay for the long term effects of my (not really) smoking habit? How about the government not be responsible for my health care to begin with? Problem solved... you don't need to worry about what I'm doing to my body then. As long as I'm not harming you, walk away and mind your own business. My right to swing my fist ends at your nose and all that.

If police and criminal law is the only tool people have, that's the tool they'll use, with possibly unintended consequences (see prohibition in the 30's and how it fostered the rise of organized crime). So saying you only want to pay for police and FD doesn't fix the underlying problem of excessive government intervention. Prohibition... ah yes, the ultimate ideology behind the sin tax. It's so bad for you that you flat out can't have it at all. You know what, people from NY drive to VA to buy cigarettes, people from PA come to NY to get booze, people from the US go to Canada to get booze with higher alcohol content, etc. Sin taxes just help drive the business underground. Sin taxes, excess taxation, big government and thwarting of your civil liberties all go hand and hand.

I would rather that the government have a range of tools at its disposal. I wouldn't impose on a contractor that the only tools he's allowed to use to build a house is a hammer and a chisel. I would be a lot more concerned about enough oversight to make sure he's honest and sufficiently experienced to use power tools and cranes if appropriate instead of charging me for doing everything with a hammer and chisel. Why is it the government's job to fix you? What's wrong with charities, church groups, 12 step programs, etc? What you advocate is saying the government should be the one contractor that you can hire to build your house (because he'll work for no extra charge) and he can use any tools as he wants but there's no guarantee that he won't do a crap job because the funding will never dry up even if he sucks at it (see the farce known as public schools).