Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I think we only have 2 or 3 minutes before the 20-minute period that has been reserved equally for both sides. I wish to use those 3 minutes to respond directly to my colleague from the State of Texas. The first thing he says is, do not tax the Internet. Good news. I just went through the entire bill. There is no tax on the Internet in the bill, none. So we have taken care of point No. 1. In fact, we wanted to add the Internet Freedom Act here, which would have said expressly: We will continue the prohibition against tax on the Internet, and it was objected to by one of the opponents of this bill. The second thing he says is, do not put a burden on small businesses. I would say to my friend from Texas, what about the small business that does not have Internet sales? You have just put a burden on them because they cannot compete with Internet retailers that do not collect sales taxes. I might say also, when it comes to small business exemptions, we exempt those with sales of $1 million or less in the previous year. That exempts 99 percent of all Internet retailers. The small businesses--the Hispanic and non-Hispanic businesses--collect sales taxes in Texas on the first dollar of sales. We exempt $1 million in sales for their competitors in Internet retail. The final thing the Senator says is, do not favor large businesses. The coalition supporting this bill includes the smallest businesses, the mom-and-pop businesses.…”