Dale Bumpers: “this morning, I was reading the New York Times and came across an article truly exhilarating to me. It dealt with a…”

“this morning, I was reading the New York Times and came across an article truly exhilarating to me. It dealt with a matter that the Presiding Officer is all too familiar with, too. A number of large States are in the process of negotiating an agreement with some of the biggest mail order houses in the country, under which those mail order houses will, in the future, pay sales tax on merchandise they send into States that have either a use tax or a sales tax. It was in the 1992 Quill decision the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could authorize the States to require collection of sales and use taxes by mail order houses shipping goods across State lines. But Congress would have to make that decision formally by legislation. So I sponsored such legislation because I was a former small town merchant--I practiced law, I ran cattle, I had a small hardware retail and appliance store, and I even owned a cemetery one time, Mr. President. I did anything I could do to make money. Even back in those days, a lot of people ordered things from catalogs. I resented it. I was on Main Street collecting sales taxes, paying a corporate franchise tax to the city, paying all the taxes that make a decent place to live, and I was being competed against by people from other States who paid nothing. In 1994, and again in 1995, I introduced legislation to authorize the mandated collection of interstate sales taxes. I got a vote on it and, of course, didn't get nearly enough to pass.”