Womack Works Hard to Increase Your Tax Burden
A lot of successful business people around here who apparently don't have time to look at his actual performance seem very impressed with Congressman Steve Womack. Maybe some of it was related to his past. He turned in a very credible performance as Mayor of Rogers. But it is very common for people who get elected to higher office to get stars in their eyes and quit listening to the people back home. I see a very bad case of that malady unfolding right here.
Steve Womack looks great in a suit and has a resonant, authoritative voice. If that's all you want in a Congressman then you should be happy with Womack. Personally, I'd like to add at least two more items to the list. 1) They should keep their thieving hands out of my pockets and 2) Quit spending money we don't have. Adding a third metric- keeping their oath of office by reducing the role of the federal government only to that explicitly permitted in the Constitution, seems almost too much to ask. Of course, if they did the first two things, they would have to get closer to the third just because they could not fund extra-constitutional operations to the same extent that they have been.
Congressman Womack is the lead sponsor of legislation to add more teeth to the enforcement of internet sales tax collections. He can technically argue that this is not a tax increase, but effectively it is. Please raise your hand if you sent Steve Womack to congress so that he could effectively raise taxes for you and your family. No one? Me neither. At least I did not vote for him last time. I voted for a rather naive young libertarian furniture salesman. I did that because I took the trouble to actually listen to what both of them were saying before I cast my ballot. Not how good they sounded while they were saying things mind you, but rather I listened to what they were actually saying. Only the young libertarian was even saying that he would meet requirements one and two listed above.
Wal-Mart would love it of course, because it gets the feds involved in making it harder to shop on line. I suspect that is one of the few "folks back home" Womack is still listening to. It is sad when artificial "persons" called corporations have more access to our congressman than we do. My guess is that a super-majority of actual persons in his district DO NOT WANT him to push for this tax revenue increase. But state governments do, and Wal-Mart does. The corporate persons have more influence than the real ones.
But its not just about the money. It is also about the privacy. This would require extensive intrusion into your business concerning your online purchases. It would also push the small online operators out of business as compliance costs skyrocket. (NOTE: There is, for now, an exemption for those with sales under $500,000). A small business owner with an online presence would not have one state to answer too, but 50! They would all be on the prowl for revenue, they would all have their requirements and demands, with the feds aiding and abetting them. And of these fifty states seeking revenues from the small merchant, only in one would he even have a vote! Womack's bill is taxation without representation. Taxation without representation is indeed tyranny, therefore Womack's bill is tyranny.
Notice also, that there is no attempt by the legislation to cut taxes somewhere else in order to balance out the additional revenues soon to be extracted from your earnings. It is simply a transfer of additional funds from the county to the ruling class in government. This at a time when people who don't have government jobs are staring into the financial abyss of a Great Depression. From this fact alone it is clear which of those to factions Congressman Womack now identifies with.
The shipping costs associated with online purchases should make up the cost difference between online and brick and mortar retailers, but where the sales tax is too high they don't. That's the real problem. Government intervention (imposing sales taxes) make it more cost effective to buy from someone in Delaware and have them ship to you individually than pay the sales tax at a store in your own home town! Womack's answer is to increase the amount of government intervention in the free market.
And just in case some of you lefties think this is a Republican problem with them being corporate tools and all that, know that this is a "bi-partisan" bill with plenty of "left" leaning Democrat co-sponsors. Sen. Mark Pryor is a co-sponsor. And Republicans, lest you be tempted to think this is an aberration, Sen. John Boozman and Congressman Tim Griffin also support taking more of your money and giving it to government.
The real problem is not an "R and D" problem, it is that both parties in the country no longer answer to the people of the country. Localism provides answers. They are not easy answers, but the consequences of failing to face these problems and seek out answers is living under tyranny in a disguise so thin that only the most unwilling to see don't recognize it as such.
Steve Womack looks great in a suit and has a resonant, authoritative voice. If that's all you want in a Congressman then you should be happy with Womack. Personally, I'd like to add at least two more items to the list. 1) They should keep their thieving hands out of my pockets and 2) Quit spending money we don't have. Adding a third metric- keeping their oath of office by reducing the role of the federal government only to that explicitly permitted in the Constitution, seems almost too much to ask. Of course, if they did the first two things, they would have to get closer to the third just because they could not fund extra-constitutional operations to the same extent that they have been.
Congressman Womack is the lead sponsor of legislation to add more teeth to the enforcement of internet sales tax collections. He can technically argue that this is not a tax increase, but effectively it is. Please raise your hand if you sent Steve Womack to congress so that he could effectively raise taxes for you and your family. No one? Me neither. At least I did not vote for him last time. I voted for a rather naive young libertarian furniture salesman. I did that because I took the trouble to actually listen to what both of them were saying before I cast my ballot. Not how good they sounded while they were saying things mind you, but rather I listened to what they were actually saying. Only the young libertarian was even saying that he would meet requirements one and two listed above.
The basic description of his bill to increase the tax burden on you and your family is described by him as "The Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013 would give states the option to require the collection of sales and use taxes already owed under State law by out-of-state businesses, rather than rely on consumers to remit those taxes to the States—the method of tax collection to which they are now restricted.
Wal-Mart would love it of course, because it gets the feds involved in making it harder to shop on line. I suspect that is one of the few "folks back home" Womack is still listening to. It is sad when artificial "persons" called corporations have more access to our congressman than we do. My guess is that a super-majority of actual persons in his district DO NOT WANT him to push for this tax revenue increase. But state governments do, and Wal-Mart does. The corporate persons have more influence than the real ones.
But its not just about the money. It is also about the privacy. This would require extensive intrusion into your business concerning your online purchases. It would also push the small online operators out of business as compliance costs skyrocket. (NOTE: There is, for now, an exemption for those with sales under $500,000). A small business owner with an online presence would not have one state to answer too, but 50! They would all be on the prowl for revenue, they would all have their requirements and demands, with the feds aiding and abetting them. And of these fifty states seeking revenues from the small merchant, only in one would he even have a vote! Womack's bill is taxation without representation. Taxation without representation is indeed tyranny, therefore Womack's bill is tyranny.
Notice also, that there is no attempt by the legislation to cut taxes somewhere else in order to balance out the additional revenues soon to be extracted from your earnings. It is simply a transfer of additional funds from the county to the ruling class in government. This at a time when people who don't have government jobs are staring into the financial abyss of a Great Depression. From this fact alone it is clear which of those to factions Congressman Womack now identifies with.
The shipping costs associated with online purchases should make up the cost difference between online and brick and mortar retailers, but where the sales tax is too high they don't. That's the real problem. Government intervention (imposing sales taxes) make it more cost effective to buy from someone in Delaware and have them ship to you individually than pay the sales tax at a store in your own home town! Womack's answer is to increase the amount of government intervention in the free market.
And just in case some of you lefties think this is a Republican problem with them being corporate tools and all that, know that this is a "bi-partisan" bill with plenty of "left" leaning Democrat co-sponsors. Sen. Mark Pryor is a co-sponsor. And Republicans, lest you be tempted to think this is an aberration, Sen. John Boozman and Congressman Tim Griffin also support taking more of your money and giving it to government.
The real problem is not an "R and D" problem, it is that both parties in the country no longer answer to the people of the country. Localism provides answers. They are not easy answers, but the consequences of failing to face these problems and seek out answers is living under tyranny in a disguise so thin that only the most unwilling to see don't recognize it as such.
posted by Mark Moore (Moderator) at Monday, February 18, 2013
2 Comments:
Besides the federal government having these new controls, just a few months ago, the U.N. drafted a new “Telecommunications Treaty” to impose restrictive regulations, global CENSORSHIP, and a massive new tax on all Internet operations.
If ratified by the United States Senate, the United Nations “Telecommunications Treaty” – designed to take effect in 2015 – could give control of the Internet to U.N. bureaucrats.
Ultimately, the U.N. hopes to use this scheme to take a tax bite out of the TRILLIONS of dollars exchanging hands via Internet commerce – money that will make the U.N. a true world government.
And this National Internet Tax Mandate is playing right into their hands.
I am really disappointed in our state representatives that can find ways again to tax and regulate us and on top of that feel like they are helping us in some way. They are proud that they are doing this in a bi-partisan way. So they finally come up with something they both agree on and it is something that regulates us more and raises taxes underneath the vail of fairness.I guess these congressman and senators feel like Obama does in the way he feels people need to pay their fair share in taxes.
This is congress trying to go against a Supreme court judgement in 1992 that said merchants that don’t have a presence in a state they don’t have to collect sales tax.
Just another power grab by Washington who can’t stop spending but have no problem in finding ways to steal more money from our pockets.
Thank-you Tom Cotton for not putting your name on this bill!
The points you raise are all serious questions, and I thought they deserved serious answers.
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