MSNBC's Ratigan: California's 'Amazon Tax' Kills Jobs, Let's Have Nationwide Internet Tax Instead
Unfortunately for Dylan Ratigan, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
The MSNBC anchor nearly stumbled onto a valid point on Thursday's "Dylan Ratigan Show" – reporting that California's new Internet sales tax could cost thousands of jobs and millions in tax revenue – until he proposed solving this dilemma with a national Internet sales tax.
"If we're going to do something like this," wondered Ratigan. "Should it not be applied on a national level? Maybe a national online retail sales tax."
Teeing up his daily "Mega Panel" segment, Ratigan correctly pointed out that the $317 million per year in tax revenue proponents say the law will generate will be offset by Amazon terminating its contracts with thousands of in-state affiliates, which will result in an exodus of jobs and capital from California and could end up chasing away more revenue than it generates.
Ratigan delivered his rant just days after his former employer, CNBC, ranked California 32nd overall in its annual "America's Top States for Business" report, which was released before the so-called "Amazon tax" took effect. The report, which noted California's 11.7 percent unemployment rate, ranked the Golden State 47th in "cost of doing business" and 50th in "business friendliness."
Imposing a national Internet sales tax would only nationalize what Ratigan himself admitted will be a disastrous state policy. If state law is driving online retailers like Amazon and Overstock out of California, then adopting this law at the federal level would just pressure companies to take their business, jobs, and tax revenue overseas, or at least across the border into Canada or Mexico.
As much as Ratigan bemoans outsourcing, his job-killing policy prescriptions belie his class-warrior rhetoric.
A transcript of Ratigan's introduction to his daily "Mega Panel" segment can be found below:
MSNBC
Dylan Ratigan Show
June 30, 2011
4:13 p.m. ET
DYLAN RATIGAN: California shoppers, open your wallets, the state will soon start collecting sales tax on everything that you buy online. Governor Jerry Brown signing the so-called Amazon tax, went into law yesterday. The deal is expected to raise $317 million a year for the state. Amazon and others threatening to cut ties with California so they can remain tax exempt. Who wants to pay taxes after all? So we have a law that's supposed to generate much-needed revenue – taxes on retail sales on the Internet – but it could end up actually driving 25,000 small businesses out of the state, taking jobs along with them, and the $152 million that they pay in state income tax. Which makes me wonder, if we're going to do something like this, should it not be applied on a national level? Maybe a national online retail sales tax.
--Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
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Comments
Constitutional ammendment?
Submitted by Fredy on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 6:22pm.
Seems to me that they would need a constitutional ammendment to implement a national online retail sales tax.
I used to think that way, too, Fredy.
Submitted by Newsbubba on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 7:38pm.
Bambi's already proved that he can do whatever the hell he wants to do, and the Congress won't do squat!
We really need to find some conservatives who will do something besides say, "Yassa, boss man."
Time to impeach the RBFSOB.
How about we don't and say we
Submitted by well99 on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 6:24pm.
How about we don't and say we did.
Amazon cuts ties with California partners
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-amazon-cuts-ties-wit...
Right, Ratigan. Let's not kill jobs just in California....
Submitted by Dave. on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 6:28pm.
...but all across America instead.
Yeah, sounds like a plan to me, if your goal is to drive our national economy even deeper into the toilet bowl than it is already is, I mean.
Seriously, where do they find people this breathtakingly stoopid?
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
Dave
Submitted by well99 on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 7:23pm.
The Government Media has a steady supply of these mentally challenged yahoos.I just wish they would grab them after they complete rehab for crack instead of before.
Eric Holder beat ya to it, he
Submitted by jkwtrading on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 9:51pm.
Eric Holder beat ya to it, he is releasing 16000 crack heads from Federal penitentiaries
crack heads
Submitted by Radical1979 on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 10:15pm.
I'd be willing to bet they gave them voter registration cards as they were released.
These Greaseballs...
Submitted by BookinWeasel on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 6:29pm.
are going to search for every penny of spare change from their sofa just to realize that they have torn up the sofa in the process....
This idiot thinks doing it to
Submitted by amyshulk on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 7:09pm.
This idiot thinks doing it to 1 company kills jobs, so his solution is to spread the pain??? Moron.
Ronald Reagan
Reminds me of the story of two guys selling watermelons.
Submitted by Newsbubba on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 7:45pm.
No, this ain't a racist joke (unless you're a liberal).
Two guys start a watermelon business. They drive to the farm, pick up a load of watermelons for $1.00 each, drive back to the city and sell them for $.50 each.
After a few trips, they realize that they aren't making any money, and are actually losing money.
One guy asks the other what they need to do to make money on this deal.
The smarter guy thinks about it for a minute and says, "We need to do more volume. Let's get a bigger truck!"
Stupidity is a biological condition. Ignorance is a life style choice.
hey cool was the name of the
Submitted by jkwtrading on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 9:49pm.
hey cool
was the name of the business " Obama and Holder and sons."
think I saw their truck...
I saw that truck! Some
Submitted by ant on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 11:19pm.
I saw that truck! Some Tea-party people were trying to pull it out of a ditch, while Holder drank lemonade and Obama threw mud at them, that is, until a limo pulled up and sped the pair off to a golf course.
ok that confirms it..must
Submitted by jkwtrading on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 10:09am.
ok that confirms it..must have been them incognito..
Close, JK.
Submitted by Newsbubba on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 11:39am.
It was Obama, Weiner, Holder and Sons, I think.
Leave California alone!
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 8:12pm.
As a Texan, I can appreciate California's efforts to support our economy.
Me too!
Submitted by drsamherman on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 8:28pm.
Looking at month-end reports this afternoon, I noticed that 15 of my 32 new patients were all California transplants. The Granola State is now exporting its citizens and jobs in parallel fashion.
Wow Dr,
Submitted by Boudin on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 11:31pm.
They must be sickly too?
Spreadload the pain
Submitted by Galvanic on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 8:26pm.
Ratigan knows that California cannot climb out of the hole it's dug for itself, and acknowledges the Internet tax will hurt the state even more.
Other so-called blue states are not far behind California.
Though they will not speak publicly about it, the Democrats only solution is to get finanicially healthy red states to bail out the wasteful blue states.
Ratigan's national online sales tax is but one form of this.
Exactly right, Gal.
Submitted by UpNorth on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 8:39pm.
Next, after the onlne sales tax, will be the national sales tax.
Unless they think they can get on TV and just tell everyone it's their "duty" to bail out the failed states like NY, California, Illinois, Washington state and a few others. I'm sure they'll find a few, or more than just a few teleprompter readers to agree with them.
Internet sales are nothing new
Submitted by gadropout on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 10:09pm.
Internet sales are nothing new. We used to use the telephone and mail. Some people still do. It's called mail order sales. Montgomery Ward started it 139 years ago. The courts have decided on this many times. It is unconstitutional to tax goods from another state. I would think a normal American would be ashamed to register as a Democrat these days. That party is led by Marxists, socialists, Maoists, communists, statists, Trotskyites, Stalinists...whatever you want to call them. I guess Obamaist fits. Regardless, the Democrats are un-American and are diametrically opposed to liberty.
You're correct. In 1992 a
Submitted by Ken Shepherd on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 10:43am.
You're correct. In 1992 a unanimous Supreme Court tossed out North Dakota's attempt to tax mail-order goods sold by a company that didn't have a physical presence in the state.
And guess who wrote the opinion in that case? The uber-liberal Justice John Paul Stevens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quill_Corp._v._North_Dakota
Actually, California has gone
Submitted by dscott on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 12:37am.
Actually, California has gone about the whole thing the wrong way. In Virginia, all out of state sales to Virginia residents are taxable whether the sales tax is collected by the merchant or directly from the customer. In VA when you file your income tax you are specifically asked on the tax return if you have made out of state purchases via the internet and then are asked to total the purchases. The State collects it's sales tax via the honor system, however, IF the State should catch you not paying then you are going to pay a fine. Honorable people do the honorable thing, it's called character.
FYI- Amazon.com has a page for account holders to see all their purchases via their site which then aids in you tallying the gross sales for the tax to be paid.
All States are entitled to raise revenue to meet their budget obligations, the sales tax has been around for a long time so this shouldn't be onerous or unexpected to those residents.
IMO, CA taxing internet sales isn't the issue, it's the level of taxation that is at issue in CA. If a State like Florida decides to raise all it's revenue via a consumption tax - sales tax, to forego an income tax then that is their deal with their residents. If a State decides the only source of revenue will be a sales tax in lieu of an income tax or property tax, that's the choice of the people of that State. In the end, the level of taxation is an internal State matter between the residents and their expectation of services. CA residents have chosen to subsidize 100s of thousands of illegals, to do that they must pay. As a CA citizen you have a choice, you don't like subsidizing these people or their problems, then either pitch a fit at your legislators and failing their listening, pack your bags and go where people agree with you. It's the American way.
pack your bags and go where
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 9:44am.
pack your bags and go where people agree with you. It's the American way.
The Democrats want everyone to suffer the same. If we bail out states that will go under then we are subsidizing their bad policies.
California has had an "internet sales tax" in place for years.
Submitted by big.league.slider on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 11:11pm.
California has had an "internet sales tax" on the state's residents in place for years. It is the State Board of Equalization Use Tax. The greedy scumbags at the California BoE force millions of California residents to fill out a separate BoE tax return every year just for reporting this Use Tax.
Of course, California's Gov. Moonbeam and the Democrat halfwits in control of the state legislature are too stupid to understand that the internet commerce takes place virtually and is not hindered by geographic location. An e-commerce business can move out of California to another more freindly state quickly and easily. The only recourse California would then have is to convince other state governments to require that e-commerce businesses in that state report their sales to California. But that's not likely to happen with most states. Can you imagine Texas agreeing to report e-commerce sales to California? That's why Ratigan wants a federal tax.
Only Ratigan's generic Left Wing brain could do this...
Submitted by acaiguana on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 7:48am.
I'll try to use small words here as we are all obviously so stupid.
Ratigan's brain: (an example of the elitist brilliance brought to us by the Democrat Party's deepest thinkers)...
Brain - with concious thought running around on furry feet.
(thought) "Um, Amazon just dumped 25,000 small businesses off their site in California and a lot of them will go bankrupt or close their doors."
(Analysis) "Um,,,, what to do what to do"
(Conclusion)
"Let's take it national."
:-<0
ACA
...
Quoted from: 'Acaiguana notes from the Underground' (Soon to be at theaters near you)
actions have consequences-
Submitted by JIMMY1660 on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 10:59am.
Lets see-Boeing to Leave the USA-
Amazon to leave the USA-
etc-etc-etc
Who then will have jobs to pay taxes-for those Government Union slugs.
the party will be over-shut off the lights on the way out-oops BHO shut down Coal-OIL-Natural Gas energy plants-sorry no lights either.
Liberal Saboteurs at their best
"The stupdity is strong in this one."
Submitted by wizardjr on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 3:09pm.
And when those companies move offshore to escape that tax all we'll hear is a load of BS about evil corporations.
A-effing-mazing.