California’s Democrats, having refused to get tough with the unions who coincidentally will fund their re-election campaigns, are still determined to raise taxes. So they continue to push for an unconstitutional Amazon Tax on the Internet that just might cost the state more than it brings in, in the long run. They’re playing with “thresholds” to try to focus the bill on specific companies like Amazon, narrowing the tax base and making the idea even worse! So yes, as Calbuzz says, it’s still a bad deal for California.
And just think, soon the rest of the country going to face the same problem as Dick Durbin’s Internet Tax would target Amazon nationally.
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And now I really push the definition of Tech at Night, starting to write this at 2am. I’d originally planned to skip tonight’s edition, and instead just sleep. But I woke up, and sleep isn’t returning anytime soon, so let’s make the rounds of tech and policy.
Some Democrats still haven’t learned the lesson of the PCCC. The far left alternative to the DCCC published a Net Neutrality pledge for Democrats to sign. Every Democrat who signed it lost in November. Yet some Democrats continue to press that extremist agenda. It shows just how of touch Harry Reid’s Senate really is.
Possibly more importantly, the drive for the Internet Tax (which again, they call Universal Service Fund reform) continues from the left. The New York Times came out for it, and a group called Consumer Federation of America is even targeting Netflix specifically for an Internet tax. Watch out.
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I’m back. CPAC week came and went. Then another week came and went after the horrible cold I got at CPAC. But now I’m healthy again and it’s time to start catching up. Though there’s no way I’m going to post on every tidbit I’ve run across in the last two weeks, I can try to hit the highlights.
And let’s start with the fact that the Internet Kill Switch is back under a new name. Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman have reintroduced the bill under a new name. They think if they put freedom in the name that we’ll ignore the problems inherent in giving the President emergency powers to wage economic war on America. The Internet Kill Switch is a broken idea. We don’t let the President close supermarkets nationwide if one butcher in one city has an e. coli outbreak. We can’t apply the same overreaction online.
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Good evening. Apologies again for missing two of three Tech at Night episodes last week. I can only plead an overabundance of desire for the weekend causing me to be forgetful on Friday. But that just means we have more to look at tonight, so let’s go.
Yes, the forces of Net Neutrality Internet regulation were beaten badly last week. How badly? We already knew that All 95 PCCC Net Neutrality Pledge signers lost, but on top of that, the PCCC itself raised only $300 on the cause. Even if every donor gave only one dollar, that’s the sign of a failing fringe movement, not a popular position with broad, bipartisan support.
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Sorry for missing Tech at Night on Monday, but I had to rest up for Election Day. And of course, as you may have heard, Republicans ended up having a good night. What you may not have heard though, was that the forces of radical Internet regulation had a very bad night. Democrats went for broke on Net Neutrality but as covered by Moe Lane and RS Insider, support for unilateral regulation of the Internet killed Congressional jobs. Every single member who signed the PCCC pledge to support the FCC on Title II reclassification, lost. Every one of them!
It’s time the FCC owned up to the rejection the American people dealt their plans, and pledged to wait for Congress to act.
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