Heidi Alexander: “I thank the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Illinois for allowing me to have 5 minutes. I do believe in…”

“I thank the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Illinois for allowing me to have 5 minutes. I do believe in having regular order. I have been looking for it for quite a while on this bill. But let me start with exactly what the point of this bill is. This bill is about two words. It is about States rights. I say that as a former Governor who cares a lot about States rights. I see another former Governor sitting in the chair up there. What this bill does is it allows the Governor of Tennessee and the Legislature of Tennessee to decide whether to require out-of-State sellers in Tennessee to do the same thing we require of instate sellers in Tennessee. In other words, if the National Boot Company has to collect the State sales tax and send it to the State government when it sells a pair of boots, then an out-of-State catalog seller or an out- of-State online seller who sells boots in Tennessee has to do the same thing. It is that simple. It is an 11-page bill. That is a rarity around here, an 11-page bill. It doesn't make any of these decisions for the States; it just says the States can make that decision for themselves. With all respect to ourselves, I trust the Governor of Tennessee and the legislators of Tennessee to make tax decisions a lot more than I trust Washington politicians to make them. This has nothing to do with the Federal Tax Code. It has zero to do with it. It has about as much to do with the Federal Tax Code as the milk production bill.…”