Foundation

It’s easy to see why there’s sudden, strong opposition to the Marketplace Fairness Act, as yet another Republican governor, Terry Branstad, backs the bill.

I again state my opposition to the lousy language backing the bill, including “fairness” and “loophole”. Yes, that language is being driven by marketplace losers, but both sides of this debate are ponying up cash.

I favor the bill on its merits, not because of who’s spending. I’m not even used to seeing Republicans equating business backing of a bill with the bill’s wrongness. Democrats? Yes, but not Republicans. I don’t think it should be a factor at all. I want to save the sales tax from becoming obsolete, and from having to be replaced by “progressive” taxation, as it probably will, since as people shift from local to national and global, firms not called Amazon still aren’t going to have distribution in every state.

Limited government does not mean no government, particularly at the state level. The money’s got to come from somewhere. Either we shore up the sales tax or we raise other taxes, all else being equal.