Marketplace Fairness Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. I thank my colleague, Senator Enzi. I want to give fair warning to all who are witnessing the debate that bipartisanship is about to break out on the floor of the Senate, and you can witness it. We have a bipartisan effort led by Senator Enzi, who has really been dedicating his life in public service, as a former retailer, to being sensitive to the needs of Main Street and small business. For years, he worked with our former colleague, Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, and they did their best to pass this legislation. When Senator Dorgan retired, I approached Senator Enzi and said: I would like to join you in this effort. I am honored to be on the floor with him and our mutual friend, Senator Alexander, in this combined bipartisan effort to deal with an issue I think is essential to fairness in our economy and helping small businesses thrive, which is the key to economic revitalization.

If you ask the small businesses in my home State of Illinois what they want, it is not a big handout from Washington, nor any special attention. Frankly, they ask for a level playing field: Let them compete. What Senator Enzi has said is that many retailers in my State, his, and every State are finding it more difficult to compete because they have to rent a building or buy one. They have to pay the property taxes. They, of course, have to pay utility bills and local taxes that might be generated because of their sales either to the State or local government. In each instance, they are investing back into the community and State in which they live. That is part of the basic understanding we have in this country, that we are in this together and we need to cooperate. The businessman down the street who is selling something in a store is also at the same time supporting the local community to make sure it has traffic lights and make certain it has police protection and utilities and streets and curbs and gutters and everything that goes with it.

But there has been a new phenomena in the American marketplace over the last several decades, and now it is in full throat, and that is the Internet. Internet sales are an amazing entity--we can literally click a mouse and buy a product that will arrive several days later at our home or business place. It also has invited an inequity, an unfairness that we address in this bill.

We are not creating any new taxes in this bill. I say to my friends on both sides of the aisle, that is not our intention, nor does this bill do that. What it does is it provides a mechanism to collect existing taxes that are owed under existing law, period. We do this in a fashion--which Senator Alexander will describe in a moment--that capitalizes on the technology and software available today to make this a process that is not burdensome and does not slow down commerce in any way.

I recently went to Bloomington, IL, and a number of other communities in my State and sat down with local retailers and had them tell their stories--in many cases, depressing stories--about what they are going through. In one instance, this fellow sells camping gear, outdoor wear, some snorkeling equipment, and ski equipment, and it is not unusual for him and for others who are selling that type of sporting equipment to have local customers come in and look for the product they want, actually get a fitting to make sure they get the right size, and then leave to order it on the Internet so they can escape any sales tax liability. Well, that isn't fair to the local merchant, and it certainly wasn't the intention of Illinois or any other State to impose a sales tax just on those businesses that physically exist in our States.

This bill, the Marketplace Fairness Act, applies this sales tax across the board to sales across the United States, and it is voluntary. States have to decide they want to move into this field and use this opportunity. I think that is the way to approach it. Some 24 States, if I am not mistaken, have already signed up for this streamlined coalition which allows them to make this happen. Other States, by complying with this law and passing a local State law, can do the same. It is their option. We don't impose it or demand it. It is their option, if they choose it, to use existing sales tax and to take the initiative at the State level. As Senator Alexander has reminded me many times, it is a States rights issue, as it should be, and that is what we are focusing on in this legislation.

I think it is an issue of fairness, and I think it goes beyond what we are facing today in terms of the disparity between Democrats and Republicans. We are coming together. We are coming together on behalf of tax fairness, coming together on behalf of States rights, coming together to make certain that small businesses across America have the resources they need to prosper, be profitable, and, we hope, to expand their workforce. We need to create more jobs, and I don't think it is unreasonable to expect that to happen as these local retailers become more competitive and more profitable.

I might also add that the States that decide to opt in to it will have a source of revenue that will be helpful to them in difficult times. Again, it is their decision.

I will not recount all of the groups that have endorsed this; Senator Enzi already has. It is a pretty impressive array. One of the most impressive supporters he has read a letter from is Amazon--to think that one of the largest if not the largest online retailer in America endorses this bill. When I think back on all of the battles that have been fought in all of the States by Amazon when each State tried to address this, I believe it is telling that they have stepped forward and said: Here is a solution that can work. And if the largest online retailer in America--or one of the largest--feels that way, it should encourage many colleagues who don't want to destroy that part of our economy, and I certainly don't either.

This is a positive step in the right direction. I thank Senator Tim Johnson, Senator Boozman, Senator Jack Reed, Senator Blunt, Senator Whitehouse, and many others who are going to join Senator Enzi, Senator Alexander, and myself in this effort to pass this bipartisan bill. Let's get this done. Let's work together on a bipartisan basis to solve a problem that has haunted us for over a decade and do it in a fair fashion that does not create any new taxes but gives to the States the right to collect those taxes that are already on the book.

I yield the floor.

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