OBAMA CAMPAIGN STATEMENT ON ROMNEY VICE PRESIDENTIAL PICK

CHICAGO – Obama for America Campaign Manager Jim Messina released the following statement in response to Mitt Romney picking Congressman Paul Ryan to be his presumptive nominee for vice president:

“In naming Congressman Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney has chosen a leader of the House Republicans who shares his commitment to the flawed theory that new budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy, while placing greater burdens on the middle class and seniors, will somehow deliver a stronger economy. The architect of the radical Republican House budget, Ryan, like Romney, proposed an additional $250,000 tax cut for millionaires, and deep cuts in education from Head Start to college aid. His plan also would end Medicare as we know it by turning it into a voucher system, shifting thousands of dollars in health care costs to seniors. As a member of Congress, Ryan rubber-stamped the reckless Bush economic policies that exploded our deficit and crashed our economy. Now the Romney-Ryan ticket would take us back by repeating the same, catastrophic mistakes.”

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Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Paul Ryan,Medicare Vouchers,2012 Elections,The Republican Party,Current Events

Why Closing The Amazon Tax Loophole Would Make Taxes (Slightly) More Progressive

By Pat Garofalo on Aug 10, 2012   ThinkProgress.org

Last month, Tea Party Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) warned that a congressional effort close the “Amazon loophole” — which allows online retailers to undercut their competition by not collecting sales tax — would lead to government control of the internet. DeMint also penned an entire op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to rant against the effort, calling an online sales tax “taxation without representation.”

Many prominent Republicans, including Govs. Chris Christie (R-NJ) and Mitch Daniels (R-IN) support the measure, which would level the playing field for all retailers, rather than giving online retailers a competitive advantage for no reason. (Current law says that retailers only need to collect sales tax in states in which they have a physical presence.)

Furthermore, since wealthy Americans are more likely to have convenient and reliable internet access, the Amazon loophole makes sales taxes even more regressive:

Even apart from the Internet sales tax issue, poorer families pay a larger share of their income in sales taxes than better-off families do because they have to spend almost everything they earn. Tax-free Internet shopping compounds the problem: many low-income families would love to shop online to avoid sales tax but can’t because they don’t own a computer or can’t afford high-speed Internet access.

Closing the Amazon loophole, which Amazon now actually supports for its own reasons, would allow states to collect billions of dollars in sales taxes that currently go uncollected, while allowing traditional retailers to compete on equal terms. According to a survey conducted this year, many shoppers say that intentionally shop online in order to avoid sales taxes.

Technorati Tags: Amazon Tax Loophole,Taxes,Internet Commerce,Sales Tax,Current Events,Jim DeMint