Political Quotes

“I am going to be brief, having spoken on this already once today. I simply want to highlight my sense of where all of this is. Back in 1998, along with Congressman Chris Cox, a Republican Congressman from California, one of the most market-oriented individuals I have ever seen in public service, he and I came together to write the original Internet Tax Freedom Act. The reason we did is we were concerned about discrimination, which looked as though it could do enormous damage to innovation and the future of the Internet. For example, we saw early on that if someone bought the newspaper in some jurisdiction online, they would pay a hefty tax. But if they bought the snail-mail edition, they would pay no tax. So Congressman Cox and I, on a bipartisan basis, came together and said: ``We do not want to see that kind of discrimination against the future. We do not want to see that kind of discrimination against innovation and technology.'' So that is what the Internet Tax Freedom Act was all about in 1998. The subsequent reauthorizations were all about trying to build on that enormous success. Congressman Cox and I thought the Internet tax freedom bill would be a success back in 1998. It has far exceeded expectations in terms of promoting innovation and small business and many of the concerns that all three colleagues have touched on.…”