Blunt’s Turn

It’s an apropos blog title today because every other representative of Cape County’s Tea Party members has been the topic of this week’s blogging AND it describes a serious turn towards liberalism and big government by Missouri’s freshman Senator.

I couldn’t believe when an article came across my Internet Wires reporting that Roy Blunt was the Co-Sponsor of a new bill to enforce sales tax collection on Internet Purchases.

From Brian R. Hook…

The Marketplace Fairness Act would close what the Republican from southwest Missouri describes as a tax loophole, leveling the playing field between local and online retailers.

The Marketplace Fairness Act:  I don’t think anything could sound more Obama-esque!

At 7:00am on Friday 11/11/11, Jamie Allman of St. Louis’ KFTK 97.1 was scheduled to interview Blunt.  I fired off an e-mail to Jamie requesting that the Marketplace Fairness Act be a topic of discussion.

Here are a couple of statements from Mr. Blunt before the tax fairness discussion:

Are we going to be the United States of Europe; or are we going to be who we want to be…

The president’s view of this is clearly different than mine…

…We have to make a different decision; get our spending under control; get our programs under control.

What have we learned from [list of countries]…and other European countries? If your government gets bigger than you economy can support, it creates a huge, and maybe even unsolvable, problem.

Are we going to be the United States of America – where opportunity is the goal – rather than just sort of an equal division of everything that’s out there to divide.

Well, apparently, Mr. Blunt thinks that, here in America, we’re not collecting enough taxes… …and that’s just unfair. Here is the pertinent part of the discussion

Jamie: ~~Sales Tax. Is it Controversial?

Blunt: It is a little controversial; I’m for it; I’ve always been for it. What that would do would be to create a pattern where states could participate; they’d have to make the choice to opt in where the merchant who does $500 million of business over the internet would have to collect the sales tax when they do that business.

Wrong Mr. Blunt; your bill taxes SMALL business that sell $500,000 worth of goods – not $500 million

Blunt: It’s a fairness thing; it’s a fair tax equity thing. The local merchant who’s trying to be there on the Main street on the corner not even far from here or across the street from here… their products all have that – whatever it is where they live – that 5 or 6 or 7%.

Jamie: Yeah they’ve got to pay it.

Blunt: And if you get that mailed to you, you’re not paying that tax right now; though actually technically, under most state laws, including ours, you’re supposed to then voluntarily send the sales tax to the state. And, of course, we know what happens with that.

Jamie: Right

Blunt: So this is not “Taxing the Internet”. This is saying that if you buy things on the internet, you pay a tax, the same tax you’d pay if you bought it from the grocery store across the street.

Jamie: And here’s the issue, I think, for some people if they’re against this. Let’s put it this way. Let’s have no sales tax at all. But if you’re going to have a sales tax; everybody ought to be sharing that burden in terms… there’s no reason an internet company from California ought to be at a competitive advantage over a company right here in MO.

Blunt: That’s right. If you don’t pay that – your share of the tax – who takes care of the sidewalk in front of your house? Who takes care of the police department or whoever else is dependent on that tax? And so, this is a tax fairness…. I think for years, it’s been confused with the government trying to manage or tax use of the internet – which I’m not for. Now this is just saying, if you buy on the internet – and this is much less complicated all the time too ya know – if your GPS can hone in on a picture of every address in America, they can pretty closely figure out exactly what the sales tax would be for that address with a not-very-complicated program. You apply that program; send the money to the states; the states figure out how to distribute it in the fairest possible way.

Mr. Blunt, which side are you on?  The keep the government as small as possible side?  Or, the let’s make a giant sales tax collection bureaucracy side?  In your discussion with Jamie this morning, you came down on both sides.

Full Disclosure: I am a proponent of abolishing the 16th Amendment in lieu of all taxation via Consumption Taxes, I don’t disagree that we need to be able to apply taxation to the final (first) purchase of an item or service.

However, as Mr. Blunt surely knows, we don’t have a taxing problem in the U.S. right now, WE HAVE A SPENDING PROBLEM.  He is clearly not paying attention to his constituents or holding to his word when he co-sponsors a bill that provides an increase in revenue to the Government.  No matter what kind of spin he tries  to put on it, if I’m paying $10 of taxes to the government, and he puts through a bill that makes it become $11 worth of taxes… …IT’S A TAX INCREASE!!

And Mr. Blunt, it seems you are tone deaf to the regulations already stifling America’s small businesses AND to the millions of Americans that are unemployed or underemployed.  A new regulation to require such businesses to track this level of detail taxation will require new, costly and unproductive accounting activity within their firms.  And the customers will suddenly be paying 7% more (let’s call it 7% inflation) for the goods and services they spend time and effort locating for the best possible price.

Yes, Mr. Blunt, it’s your turn… …your turn to be the topic of this blog; your turn towards bigger government; your turn towards ignoring your word on taxation; your turn towards ignoring that unemployed / underemployed don’t need a 7% increase in their purchase cost; your turn to sound like Obama and his doctrine of Fairness.

Now is NOT the time for big government and more taxes.  IT’S THE SPENDING, STUPID!!