If you’ve been keeping up on the Net Neutrality debate, then you’ve noticed who is conspicuously on the “Free Internet” and “Internet Freedom of Speech” bandwagons. It certainly is a worthy cause, however here in Virginia, we have an old saying: “put your money where your mouth is.” Yesterday, the Democrats did just that.
The Democrat side of the isle must have decided that “Free Internet”
and “Freedom of Speech” doesn’t necessarily rule out taxing the internet and free speech — they voted against making the Internet Tax Fairness Act of 1998 permanent legislation.
Let me refresh your memory: in 2007, Bob Goodlatte and a number of other internet conscious legislators built an amendment to H.R. 3678, the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which would make a temporary ban on Internet access taxes permanent. A lot of time and effort went into this protection of freedom of speech. The legislation has since brought 238 bipartisan cosponsors on board.
The Internet Tax Fairness Act of 1998 created a moratorium on state and local Internet access taxes and multiple and discriminatory taxes on e-commerce. As a result of this moratorium, the Internet has remained relatively free from the burdens of new taxes. But that will probably change.
The moratorium on internet taxes will sunset in November 2007, subjecting the Internet to possible taxation from more than 7,500 taxing jurisdictions.
A major step backwards
Another festering issue has surfaced as a direct, frontal attack on freedom of speech. The organization Media Matters, with ties to Sen. Hillary Clinton, (D-NY), has begun monitoring radio shows looking for opinions and viewpoints which don’t agree with the Democratic bully-pulpit. A majority of freedom of speech advocates now fear a Democratic move to restore the “Fairness Doctrine”(*) which would effectively send journalism reeling back to the troubled anti-Communist era of the late 1940s.
If we are to believe everything the Net Neutrality supporters are saying, one has to wonder why the Internet Tax Freedom Act has not been made law. Are the roads to taxation of the internet being paved today?
What where they thinking?
Read comments from Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), former House Republican High Tech Working Group Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee
