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

Friday Funnies: Romney,Chick-Fil-A,Obama,Whatever

 Conan O'Brien: "Tough Olympic news for the Romneys. Ann Romney's horse Rafalka did not advance to the Olympic finals. Apparently it was beat by a smooth-talking socialist horse from Kenya."

"Mitt Romney is claiming he’s going to create 12 million jobs in his first time. But he hasn’t said yet if he’ll create them in China or India.”

"The U.S. team has swept all the medals in the skeet shooting event. So despite our bad economy, it's nice to know our country has never been safer from an attack of skeets."

 

Copyright © 2012 Creators Syndicate

Cagle Cartoons

Barack’s Olympic Event

Copyright © 2012 Creators Syndicate

Copyright © 2012 Creators Syndicate

Copyright © 2012 Creators Syndicate

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Barack Obama,Political Humor,Political Images,Conan O'Brian,Politics,The Economy,Current Events

Romney and Those Nuns

  Does this sorry excuse for a humane being get up in the morning just wondering who he is going to insult next?

Sister Simone Campbell had this to say:

“Recent advertisements and statements from the campaign of Governor Romney demonize families in poverty and reflect woeful ignorance about the challenges faced by tens of millions of American families in these tough economic times,” stated Sister Simone Campbell. “We are all God’s children and equal in God’s eyes. Efforts to divide us by class or score political points at the expense of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters reveal the worst side of our country’s politics.”

As NETWORK demonstrated in their recent “Nuns on the Bus” tour, budget cuts proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan and endorsed by Mitt Romney will hurt struggling families throughout the nation. The Romney-Ryan budget would devastate services such as nutrition assistance, childhood education and job training that provide pathways out of poverty for millions of families.

   There is no true Christian anywhere on this earth, much less in America, who can morally support Mitt Romney and keep a clear conscience.

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Network Lobby,Nuns,The Economy,Current Events,Politics

Mormon Insider Reveals Insights on Romney

By JLFinch on Tue Aug 07, 2012                  Original

I saw this rather interesting story at The Daily Beast today.  It is an interview with Brigham Young's great great grand-daughter, who, at the age of 55, left the Mormon Church.  Her decision was based primarily on the treatment of women within the Church.  She has formed an Ex-mormon organization to help others with the transition out of the religion.  She is now 71 years old and rarely gives interviews.  She is not a Mormon-basher by any means.  But she has a unique perspective, both on Mormonism in general and Mitt Romney in particular. 

A few of her insights I found interesting:

“Mitt is a product not only of his wealth, but of an organization that gives men power when they are 12 years old,” she says. ...

As for what pundits say is Romney's difficulty connecting with people, Emmett blames it largely on what she calls “the entitled Mormon male syndrome, where the leadership professes compassion and concern but leaves the manifestations of that to the drones.”

Emmett says Romney was a bishop, “a position where everyone defers to you. What a bishop says goes. People come to them to receive blessings.” He then became a stake president, she says, which means he presided over several congregations, and at that point bishops deferred to him.

“Mitt has had people defer to him and not challenge him his entire life,” says Emmett. “In the Mormon church if you challenge your priesthood leaders it’s a very bad thing to do, especially for women. As the world can now see, Mitt has a very hard time with being questioned and criticized; he’s had so little of this in his life."

Emmett says she doesn’t think Romney has the ability to separate what leaders of the church want from what the country needs.

“Mitt has been groomed to become president from a very young age,” says Emmett.

Emmett says she thinks Romney’s biggest fault is that he has a “serious problem telling the truth. There is flip-flopping, which he has done more than any politician in modern history, and then there is out and out lying,” she says. “This kind of thing has sadly been a part of the church from the very beginning. Some modern apostles actually taught that it is not always the best thing to tell the truth if it interferes with preaching gospel.”

At a presentation on Lying for the Lord at the 2008 Exmormon Foundation conference, Ken Clark addressed the issue. Clark, who worked as a teacher for the LDS Church Education System (CES) for 27 years and also served as a bishop before leaving the church in 2003, tells The Daily Beast, “Lying has become an institutionalized method of administrative control with the church

Mitt has been told from an early age that he has an entitlement to leadership, he has been fawned over and deferred to his whole life, and he does not like to be questioned. He is an abject liar.  He believes in a hierarchy with men superior to women. He puts his personal religious views above what is best for the country. Not good qualities in a president.  

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Mormons,Sue Emmitt,Current Events,Elitist,2012 Elections