Marketplace Fairness Act
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. The Senator from Oklahoma is my friend, and we have worked together on many occasions. I wish to state for the Record, because he knows it and I wish to put it on the Record, that we have what is called a blue-slip problem. There are no Federal taxes as part of the underlying bill. In fact, no taxes--no new taxes. If we add a provision, which the Senator has suggested--and he has six or eight amendments each dealing with the Internal Revenue Code, and many of them very meritorious--they would be objected to and the bill would be rejected in the House because revenue measures have to originate in the House of Representatives.
So it is a technical, procedural objection and does not reflect my feelings about the substance or about the sponsor.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. I would like to say I would vote for that in a second and I am not ruling out the possibility of agreeing to allow the Senator to offer this as an amendment to the bill. Please let us see if it raises a blue slip issue, which we mentioned earlier, which is a procedural issue, which means if it has a revenue measure in it initiated in the Senate, it would be subject to a blockage or objection in the House, which we are trying to avoid.
This is a measure Senator Enzi worked on for 12 years. I have worked on it for several years. We would like to get this measure up for a vote and for approval in the House. If the Senator from Oklahoma is offering a measure that would not jeopardize that, I am at least going to entertain that idea, and I will talk to my staff about it.
Mr. COBURN. I appreciate the comments of my colleague, and question.
The next amendment I would like to call up is amendment No. 767, which requires all legislation to be reviewed before it is considered by the Senate to determine whether duplicative or overlapping programs are created. I ask that that amendment be called up and the pending amendment be set aside.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Mr. DURBIN. I object.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
Mr. COBURN. Here is one that doesn't get anything as far as a blue slip. What we now have is 3 years' worth of reports by the General Accountability Office showing at least $250 billion in questionable programs that are markedly duplicative of one another. This is multiple areas, and I have them now memorized and all the new ones too. It is layer after layer, agency after agency, program after program.
This is a bipartisan amendment. All this says is that before we create another program in the Senate, we have a report from the Congressional Research Service: Does this duplicate a program that is already out there? If we continue doing what we are doing, we are going to continue to get GAO reports that we are creating programs that duplicate what we are already doing.
It is not the fact that maybe our intent is good, it is the fact that we don't know what is out there now--except GAO does now--and how will we ever know until we put a requirement on ourselves to quit creating new duplicative programs? What the commonsense man would say is that if you have programs that are doing things and they are not working, don't create another one, fix the ones you have. Yet we refuse to do that. Committee after committee refuses to do the oversight.
There is a bill sitting right now awaiting our determination, coming from the House, that reformed 36 job-training programs that the GAO said were failing and were duplicative and didn't have the metrics, and they converted those to 6, 36 out of 47 because the committee that did this, the SKILLS Act, only had jurisdiction over them. They created six programs, and they put metrics on it. We spend $19.8 billion on those 47 programs. We are going to achieve wonderful savings. But the most important thing we are going to do with the SKILLS Act is we are actually going to give somebody a skill with the money we spend rather than wasting 80 percent in the job-training programs we have, and that is what the oversight says. When you look at it, that is what it says.
For us to not continue adding to the problem, this is an amendment--it does not have a blue slip problem, so what is wrong with considering this amendment? I ask my colleague, what is wrong with considering this amendment? This is common sense. It works. It will actually cause us to not do stupid things in the future. It will actually help us to be better stewards of the public's money. Yet we are going to object to bringing it up.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, my friend and colleague from Utah Senator Hatch is going to give a speech in a moment. I would like to say before he speaks that after he has spoken, I am going to ask for a unanimous consent which renews an earlier request but expands it, and the request is going to be that we call up three amendments, two of which have been objected to already, and a third one, Senator Hatch's amendment.
For my colleagues who are following this debate in their office, the three amendments we are talking about are amendment No. 740, offered by Senators Pryor and Blunt, a bipartisan amendment that relates to the Internet Freedom Act, a 10-year extension, which was objected to yesterday; and then I will ask for consent that we go from that, after an agreed to time for debate, to amendment No. 771, offered by Senators Collins and King, another bipartisan amendment that relates to the effective date of the underlying legislation; and then, to Senator Hatch, I would say that we are going to include in this unanimous consent request his amendment No. 754, which I believe he is going to speak to now on the floor, which relates to the substance of the underlying bill, S. 743.
I am not asking for the consent at this moment but giving notice to my colleagues that this is a request that will be made after Senator Hatch has spoken.
I yield the floor.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, this is the first time I have seen this list. It has 17 Republican amendments on it. An hour apiece with a vote would probably take us around the clock or close to it. I wish to review this list with the Senator from Utah and others interested. I said earlier I was going to make a unanimous consent request. I will not make it at this very moment, but I will be making a unanimous consent request within minutes, which will include at least two of the amendments that are on his list, and it will be a starting point. I will object to the request at this moment.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, let me first thank my colleague from Massachusetts for an excellent statement in support of the legislation pending on the floor.
Let me remind my colleagues that I am planning to make a unanimous consent request on several amendments. I have asked Senator Ayotte from New Hampshire to come forward with amendments to be included on this list, and I am hoping she will do that momentarily. After Senator Paul of Kentucky, who is seeking recognition, concludes his statement, I would like to make this unanimous consent request.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I respect my colleagues from Oregon and Montana, but I respectfully disagree with the way they have described the situation.
We are talking about asking Internet retailers around America, when they make a sale, to collect the sales tax on that sale. That is it.
My colleague, Senator Heitkamp from North Dakota, was tax commissioner in her State and took a case to the Supreme Court 20 years ago about the collection of sales tax for remote sales--catalog sales, mail order operations.
She took the case to the Supreme Court, across the street, and 20 years ago they said: Congress, you have to fix this problem.
She had hoped she found the solution, but they said, no, you can't fix it State by State. Congress has to fix this problem.
Here we are 20 years later. Senator Enzi of Wyoming has been working on this issue for 12 years. I have joined him for the last 3 or 4, partnering with him in this effort. This is not a new issue. It is not new to me, not new to Senator Heitkamp or anyone on the floor. As far as this version of the bill, this version of the bill was introduced, if I am not mistaken, in February--is that correct? This version of the bill, 11 pages--by Federal standards, this is not a big, complex piece of legislation.
We asked for hearings before the Finance Committee and we did not get our wish. We brought it directly to the floor. I wish it would have been heard before the Finance Committee. Perhaps they would have made some adjustments or changes that might have been beneficial. But it reached the point where we said we have to get this done. After all these years, we have to get this done.
Why do we have to get it done? First, understand if you happen to be a person who has made a sacrifice and opened a small business in your hometown--think in terms of your sporting goods store to start with--you invested your capital. You and your spouse are there every single day. You are part of the community, to sponsor that Little League team. They came around asking for money for the United Way and you say our sporting goods store always gives to you. We are part of this community.
Then the customers walk in the door and sit down and say I want to try on that pair of running shoes, maybe try the next larger size. Do you have a different color? Once they find the right running shoe, they say, can I write down a few numbers here? And you know what happens next. They walk out the door, go home, get on the Internet, and buy that product without paying sales tax on it. So that sporting goods store down on the corner or at the mall is a showroom for goods they are not selling.
We are trying to change that. We are trying to make sure if you sell goods in a State, you collect the sales tax of that State. We do not create any new taxes. The tax we are collecting is already owed by the consumer. We certainly do not create any new Federal
taxes whatsoever. It is just a matter of collection.
Why are we tied up in knots here? The two States represented by the last two Senators to speak, Oregon and Montana, have no sales tax. There are three other States that have no State sales tax: Alaska, Delaware and New Hampshire. You would think from their arguments, the coercion they are talking about, we are trying to impose a sales tax on Oregonians or Montanans. That is not true. If this bill passes, Oregonians will not be required to pay a penny in sales tax whether they buy over the counter or over the Internet. The only people who will be affected by this are Internet retailers in that State who choose to sell their products in States that have a sales tax. We put an exemption in this bill and said if your Internet retailer has less than $1 million in sales the previous year, you are exempt; you do not have to collect sales tax.
Let's take a look at the specific States that are objecting to this bill. Of the roughly 1,000 Internet retailers who will be affected by this bill across the United States, there are 11 in the State of Oregon. Five already collect sales tax. Let me read their names because you will know them right off the bat: Adidas of Oregon already collects sales tax, Columbia Sportswear is already collecting sales tax, Nike is already collecting sales tax, Harry and David--I have gotten that as a gift once in a while--already collects sales tax. Five of the 11 Internet retailers in Oregon already collect sales tax. This is no new burden on them.
What we are talking about, then, is six Internet retailers in Oregon that I assume do not want to collect sales tax.
In Montana there are two Internet retailers with Web sales above the exemption in this bill--actually there are four in the list of Internet retailers, but one already collects sales tax and the other one is below the exemption level so they are not covered by this bill.
When I hear this objection about stopping this bill and the impact it is going to have on these States, we are talking about five businesses in Oregon, one or two businesses in Montana. That is what it is about.
But it is about much more, because these sales tax revenues are important to States and localities and local units of government. This is the money they use to avoid raising your property taxes and income taxes. This is the money they use to provide basic services for the people who live in the communities around these local stores and it is a question of leveling the playing field for the businesses as well.
What happened today, happened yesterday, and this morning? We attempted to bring to the floor amendments to this bill--and I would say that three of the five amendments we were bringing to the floor were being offered by Senators who oppose the bill. We know it. They don't want to see this bill pass. They want to try to change the bill, perhaps even jeopardize the bill. We are prepared to debate their amendments. How much more fair can you be? We have opened this bill to amendments, we have opened it to amendments that are critical of the bill, and the Senators object to our even debating them.
To the folks on C-SPAN, I am sorry, call for a refund because the Senate is not going to be the Senate today. We are not going to debate. We are not going to vote. We are in the midst of a filibuster where we are trying to bring amendments to the floor for an actual debate and a vote on a bill and we are being stopped from doing that. Is that why we ran for this office, so we can find ways to stop debate, stop amendments? I think not. I think we are sent here to do a job. If someone has a good idea on this bill, I am ready to consider it. The Internet freedom amendment we talked about here is a bipartisan amendment. Senator Pryor, a Democrat of Arkansas, Senator Blunt, Republican of Missouri, came together and said we want to extend for 10 years the prohibition against taxing people for using the Internet. I am for that. I am for that amendment. I want to consider it and I want to vote for it.
The Senator from Oregon said, oh, that is a spoonful of sugar in a bitter cup of coffee. For goodness sake, what we are trying to do is improve this legislation, and if he has a good idea, offer it as an amendment. We have opened it--Senator Enzi on the Republican side, I have opened it on the Democratic side. Bring your amendments to the floor. We are ready to debate them. But for the last 2 days consistently, those from no-sales-tax States have stopped every effort to bring an amendment to a vote.
I think that is unfortunate. Eventually this matter will be brought to a vote. We have had three different votes already--75 votes in favor of it, 74 votes in favor of it, and 75 votes. Clearly a bipartisan majority of the Senate wants to finally meet the challenge the Supreme Court gave us 20 years ago. We want to get this done. We put a lot of effort into it--no one more than Senator Enzi of Wyoming.
I thank Senator Alexander of Tennessee and Senator Heitkamp from North Dakota. I am going to yield the floor at this point and say to my colleagues, I don't know what it takes for the Senate to be the Senate. This notion of sitting here staring at one another, hoping we never get to a vote, is a disappointment, not only to those of us on the floor but I think to those who have a lot more hope for the Senate.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source