Quote of the day: coddling internet infants with tax subsidies

From Citizens for Tax Justice in the U.S.

Dear Congress: The Internet Never Was an Infant Industry That Needed Coddling

That’s our quote of the day, from their headline. There’s simply no reason to shovel subsidies at this fabulously wealthy (and increasingly politically powerful) sector. Yet that’s what’s happening in the U.S., on the assertion that the internet is a fragile ‘infant’ industry that is going to cry if it doesn’t get showered by subsidies paid for by other people elsewhere. Now some U.S. congresspeople want to make this feeding trough a permanent fixture.

As CTJ explain:

“A sustainable sales tax should apply to personal consumption as universally as possible—and it’s especially vital that the tax apply to sectors that are growing most rapidly. By permanently exempting Internet access from sales taxes, the Thune-Wyden bill will make it more likely that state governments will have to hike the sales tax rate on all the other items subject to the tax to make up the revenue loss.”