As a general rule, the less you hear about a particular political strategy, the more you should worry about it. So it’s telling that an effort by the Senate to impose a radical new Internet sales tax regime during this year’s lame-duck session is being planned in secluded Capitol hallways, far from public scrutiny.
We wonder what good, if any, will come from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s, D-Nev., intention to attach the ironically-named Marketplace Fairness Act — a bill that requires online retailers and catalogs to collect and remit sales taxes to nearly 10,000 U.S. tax jurisdictions — to the Internet Tax Freedom Act — a bill that would prevent new taxes on Internet access charges.