Salon.com > Maggie Severns

Amazon, the tax bully

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC-- Paul Misener, the vice president for global public policy at Amazon.com, appeared before members of Congress Wednesday to urge it to pass a proposed bill that would require online retailers — including Amazon itself — to collect state sales tax on the goods they sell through their websites.

“Congress should help address the states’ budget shortfalls without spending federal funds, by authorizing the states to require collection of the billions of revenue dollars already owed,” Misener said.

Currently, through a loophole created in 1992, online retailers that do not have physical stores in a state do not have to collect sales tax on the goods that they sell there. This sales tax loophole creates a loss of approximately $23 billion in uncollected state sales taxes every year. During tight budgetary years, state governments are now hungry to collect that money.

Whether Republican or Democratic, state governments have started duking it out with corporations such as Amazon, arguing that having a distribution warehouse in a state counts as having a “brick and mortar” presence there, thus requiring the company to pay sales tax. Recent congressional legislation, introduced by Reps. Steve Womack and Jackie Speier, known as the Marketplace Equality Act in the House, would allow states to opt into collecting sales tax from online retailers without the struggle. (A corresponding Senate bill has been introduced by Dick Durbin, Lamar Alexander and Mike Enzi.

Reform beyond Michelle Rhee

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:26:00 +0000

Earlier today, Gene Lyons discussed several of the problems with the education reform movement and came to a familiar conclusion: that education reformers like former Washington schools chancellor Michelle Rhee are ruining the public school system in the United States. He uses the current teacher assessment system in Tennessee, where districts are assessing kindgergarten through 3rd-grade teachers based on a 5th-grade teacher’s student test scores, as evidence that the reform agenda has gone horribly awry.

No doubt the situation Lyons refers to in Tennessee is evidence of a botched reform strategy. Yet in other areas of the country, some education reformers are working to improve school districts in ways that are both effective and increasingly popular with unions and the public. Quietly, and with little national attention thus far, recently appointed Washington, D.C., public schools chancellor Kaya Henderson is attempting to do just that: set a standard for a more nuanced, second-generation brand of education reform.

Another hidden supercommittee menace

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

The congressional deficit supercommittee is pulling into the home stretch. Whether the secret, round-the-clock negotiations among its 12 members will yield a budget-cutting deal before its Thanksgiving deadline is the subject of intense speculation in Washington.

Republican co-chair Jeb Hensarling indicated on MSNBC on Tuesday night that the Republicans have gone as far as they are willing to go when it comes to compromise. House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and others held a press conference this morning urging the supercommittee to “go big” on an agreement over deficit reduction. The White House, in the meantime, is bracing for failure, according to the Washington Post.

Obama’s tough love for Head Start

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:06:00 +0000

Before an audience of voters in Yeadon, Pa., on Tuesday, President Obama announced major changes to the Head Start program, which provides preschool access for children from low-income families, and scolded Congress for not doing more for education.

“This is the first time in history that Head Start programs will truly be held accountable for performance,” Obama explained during the speech. It’s surprising but true: While No Child Left Behind and other education reform measures have placed a spotlight on school and teacher accountability, Head Start has been plodding along untouched. Head Start preschools that do a poor job can keep receiving funding for years without ever making changes to their programs, the GAO reported in 2005.

In the future, Head Start programs will be thoroughly evaluated on a regular basis, and programs that aren’t doing a good job will have to recompete for their funding with other preschools in the area that want Head Start funding. It’s a classic example of Obama the policy wonk doing one thing he does well: taking an existing liberal program and sprucing it up, but in a way that is cost-neutral so the change draws minimal criticism.