FC: Groups try to hold McCain to his no-Net-tax pledge

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Sun May 13 2001 - 12:24:21 PDT

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    http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,43740,00.html
       
       Vexing Questions About Net Tax
       By Declan McCullagh (declanat_private
       2:00 a.m. May 12, 2001 PDT
       
       WASHINGTON -- Remember all those promises that U.S. presidential
       candidates made last year?
       
       Some libertarian and conservative groups sure do, and they're trying
       to hold Sen. John McCain to his New Hampshire pledge to oppose
       Internet taxes.
       
       At a January 2000 event designed to distance himself from George W.
       Bush, McCain signed a Citizens for a Sound Economy declaration
       that says: "I will support making permanent the current ban on
       Internet access, sales or use taxes."
       
       But with the current moratorium expiring in October, the Arizona
       Republican has quietly shifted his stand. He no longer talks about
       banning all Internet taxes, and he has not reintroduced his bill from
       the last Congress, Senate Bill 1611, which would have extended the
       existing moratorium.
       
       "McCain is allowing the Internet tax cartel train to roll right down
       the tracks and doesn't appear willing to do much to stop it at this
       time," said Adam Thierer, an analyst at the libertarian Cato
       Institute. "I don't want to be overly harsh here, but this seems like
       a rather abrupt about-face on this issue, considering how hard he was
       nailing Bush on it during the campaign."
       
       Currently, McCain is trying to broker a deal between the pro-tax state
       governments -- which say uncollected sales taxes on Internet purchases
       could cost them $12.5 billion by 2003 -- and a shaky coalition of
       online businesses and groups ideologically opposed to granting
       governments new powers to tax.
       
       "We are trying to work out a bill that can not only pass the Senate,
       but that can become law," said Mark Buse, McCain's staff director.
       "Every version that Senator McCain has worked on has contained a
       permanent extension of the Internet tax ban."
       
       "We're political realists," Buse said. "A pure extension right now
       does not have the votes to pass the Senate or the commerce committee.
       It probably has just 6 votes out of 22 on the committee. Instead of
       just posturing, we're trying very hard to work out language that will
       pass."
       
       Besides, McCain may have an easy out: By signing the CSE pledge,
       McCain only promised to oppose taxes "if elected to the office of
       president."
    
       ---
       
       Porn worm in Congress: Sen. Robert Bennett may be the former chairman
       of the Republican High-Tech Task Force and the current chairman of a
       GOP working group on "cyber safety and critical infrastructure
       protection," but you wouldn't know it by his own electronic security
       measures.
       
       On Thursday, Bennett's staff received the "homepage" worm, which their
       Windows mail software dutifully forwarded to colleagues, contacts and
       journalists on their press list.
    
       [...]
    
    
    
    
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