New Bill Would Require Online Retailers To Collect State Sales Taxes

By Lisa Kellman

A group of ten Senators proposed a bill Wednesday requiring online retailers to collect sales taxes in an effort to level the playing field for small businesses who are being out-priced by online competitors.

The effort to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act is being led by Sens. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

“For over a decade, Congress has been debating how to best allow states to collect sales taxes from online retailers in a way that puts Main Street businesses on a level playing field with online retailers,” Enzi said.

As it currently stands, remote catalog businesses and online companies are not required to collect state sales taxes as local retail stores do. Instead, Americans are responsible for voluntarily declaring online purchases on their tax return.

If this bill is passed, however, online and remote industries would collect sales taxes electronically from their customers and send the money to the customer’s individual state.

The increased tax revenue would returnan estimated $28 billion dollars to states to be utilized at their own discretion.

“The legislation addresses a states rights issue: preserving the right of states to collect, or to decide not to collect, taxes that are already owed under state law,” Alexander said.

While 24 states have already implemented a similar sales tax collection method, the act proposed would be voluntary for the remaining states.

Amazon.com and other major online retailers as well as the Conservative Union President have expressed support for the legislation. Others, like eBay, have not been so quick to jump on board.

“This is another Internet sales tax bill that fails to protect small business retailers using the Internet and will unbalance the playing field between giant retailers and small business competitors,” said eBay VP Tod Cohen in a statement, according to reports.

GOP Senators Intro Bill To Protect SC Boeing Facility

By Andrea Salazar

A group of Republican senators urged Congress Wednesday to pass a bill limiting the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) ability to shut down a Boeing Company facility in South Carolina.

The Acting General Counsel of the NLRB issued a formal complaint against Boeing alleging that it “violated federal labor law by deciding to transfer a second airplane production line from a union facility in the state of Washington to a non-union facility in South Carolina for discriminatory reasons.”

Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), John Thune (R-S.D), Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) warned against shutting down the South Carolina plant fearing negative economic effects.

“We want to make it easier for Boeing and Motorola and Westinghouse and Nissan and Toyota to build in the United States what they sell in the United States,” Alexander said. “NLRB’s action is making it easier for manufacturers to look at the United States and say, ‘We’re going to build overseas’.”

The bill, introduced by Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), would “prohibit the National Labor Relations Board from ordering any employer to close, relocate or transfer employment under any circumstance.”

“It’ll be hard to continue to make products in America if the NLRB can tell a company after they make an investment, ‘By the way, we’re going to veto your decision’,” Graham said. “The amount of power that this would give an unelected bureaucracy in an American economy is chilling.”

Senate GOP Leadership Remains Intact

By Kyle LaFleur

As expected, there will be no shakeup at the top for Senate Republicans.

Following a decent showing in this month’s midterm elections, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was elected to continue serving as Senate Minority Leader. Speculation that McConnell would be challenged by Tea Party candidate Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) for the top Senate spot never materialized.

“Let me just say that I think that we have a great opportunity here to demonstrate that we are responding to what the American people clearly would like us for us to do,” said McConnell. “Cut the spending, cut the debt and get private sector job creation going again.”

Arizona Senator Jon Kyl will retain his title as Senate Minority Whip and Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander will keep his position as Republican Conference Chair.  

“In the last several months we have tried as best we could as leadership of the Republican Conference to reflect the will of the American people,” said Kyl. “And I think our colleagues have expressed confidence in the leadership team by returning all of us to the positions in which we previously served.”  

Meanwhile, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) was elected Tuesday to serve another term as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Cornyn helped the NRSC raise tens of millions of dollars for Republicans before the elections, in which the party picked up six seats in the Senate.

Senate Republicans Denounce Energy Bill

Robert Hune-Kalter - Talk Radio News Service

Senate Republicans were quick to denounce Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) new energy and oil spill legislation that was announced late Tuesday evening. 

“Democrats are treating the serious subject of clean energy like an unwanted relative,” said Senate Republican Conference Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).

Alexander told reporters that Republicans have been prepared to debate clean energy for a year, insisting many of the party’s policies are similar to those proposed by the White House.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she believes that the energy plan put forth by Republicans is much more responsive than the package released by Reid.

“It has been suggested that our Republican plan is a cobbled together, not thought-out process,” she said.  “We put together a package that responded to the situation in the Gulf. We must increase the strict liability limits, structurally reorganize the MMS, [and] we amend the oil spill liability trust fund.”

Republicans are concerned with one part of the Reid bill that aims to end hydraulic fracturing, the method used by the natural gas industry. Later in the day, Reid told reporters that such criticism is invalid, explaining that the U.S. should explore cleaner methods of extracting natural gas. 

Democrats are launching an aggressive move to pass the legislation before adjourning for the August recess.

Republicans Say EPA Is Overreaching Boundaries

By Robert Hune-Kalter
Talk Radio News Service

Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) were joined by other GOP members for a press conference on the upcoming vote on the Environmental Protection Agency’s endangerment finding disapproval resolution. Murkowski is putting forth a resolution that would prohibit the EPA from regulating carbon emissions.

“The overreach that we see by the EPA is truly unprecedented in terms of overreach into the legislative branch by the executive. The EPA intends to take control of climate policy, take it away from Congress,” said Murkowski.

Alexander said he was not happy that the EPA wants to impose regulations on any emitter of more than 250 tons of carbon.

“This means one-fifth of our restaurants, one-fourth of all of our schools, two-thirds of all hospitals and doctors offices, one-tenth of our churches, and millions of small businesses, in effect such a broad rule would run millions of jobs overseas looking for cheap energy,” said Alexander.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he believes that the EPA regulating carbon output by businesses would be a disaster because the agency does not have the tools Congress has for regulation. While he said carbon regulation would be a job killer, he added that it is a goal to work towards.

“When it comes to carbon pollution, I am in the camp that believes all the stuff being spewed out of the cars and trucks and the plants is not good for you, but I would like to find a business-friendly way to regulate carbon,” he said.

Murkowski’s resolution will be debated in the Senate on Thursday.