The 22 most conservative members of the U.S. Senate

Arkansas Republican John Boozman - Score of 90.00 in 2011 (Lifetime rating of 93.00) [elected in 2010]

Glad to see that.

I sent him a scathing letter, when he was the District #3 Rep in the House and voted for the very first bail-out. I questioned, 'where will it stop?' He agreed in a comment he penned to his official response letter. IIRC, he never voted for another bail-out bill.

Its a relative thing. Hatch is “conservative” compared to Reid, which ain’t saying much.

Naturally, neither of my Senators, Chambliss and Isakson, make the list.

The concept of the marketplace fairness act is conservative — that people should pay the taxes rightly due under law.

Under current law, it is nearly impossible for states to enforce their rightfully passed sales and use taxes, because they simply don’t have a method of knowing how much a person owes.

And unfortunately, in the last 30 years or so, Americans have become way too comfortable with the idea that, if they can’t get caught, they can break any laws they want. The same mentality that makes people loot stores when a riot breaks out, knowing the police can’t stop them, also causes otherwise law-abiding people to cheat on their state taxes year after year, simply because they won’t get caught.

Under our constitution, interstate commerce is the proper perview of the federal government. And unlike the takeover of our health care system, the regulation of actual commerce that occurs between the states was explicitly granted to congress.

In order to both help the individual states to collect the taxes that are legally and rightfully due, and to simplify the process of paying those taxes for the citizens, the federal government needs to pass a law allowing some sort of program which will provide interstate tax collection.

This is not a new tax. This is enforcement of an existing tax, controlled by the states, so that those citizens who obey the law are not provided an additional tax burden supporting other citizens who break the law, cheat on their taxes, and laugh about it.

Whether a state has too high of a sales tax against it’s residents is a perfectly fine argument to have regarding conservative policies. But traditionally, conservatives have held that, once a law is passed, government should evenly and fairly enforce that law.

But as it stands now, states can enforce their sales tax only when their citizens buy stuff in the state, or from online companies who also do business in the state. That skewing of the tax code in favor of certain actions over other actions is a decidedly NON-conservative outcome. Government shouldn’t pick winners and losers, nor should tax policy drive business policy. The current sales tax situation does both, and a rational federal policy could correct that imbalance and restore tax fairness for all the citizens of the country.

Those of us who follow our moral obligation to pay our taxes look forward to the day when those who are currently laugh at us while they commit tax fraud will no longer be able to do so with impunity.

Customers who purchase merchandise from out of state by mail don't have to pay a tax, and the same should be true for those that shop on the Internet. If the state politicians don't like it, well, that's their tough luck. They should find other ways to raise revenue or rein in spending.

The "Marketplace Fairness Act" also isn't fair. Internet customers who already have to pay shipping charges will now have to be paying a tax as well, so this skews the business environment in favor of brick-and-mortar enterprises.

gop is a progressive party... they must lie to the base and feed them bovine poop... until they secure their nomination... then they run to the left... the home of the new gop. The dim party is the party of satan... the gop is satan lite.

LLS

i dont believe ACU since Mccain has a good rating , the must score hundreds of little votes very high then one big one such as a carbon tax as small

boozeman is my senator, I was trying to remember any bad votes but i knew there had to be, when he was in the house he voted for TARP. and tim griffin, my rep voted for cispa and ndaa he will not get my vote we have a libertarian running for his spot now

well Demint and Paul earn their 100. heck if they broadened their scoring they would still get 100

so you overlooked that he is onboard for internet taxes.

Customers who purchase merchandise from out of state by mail don't have to pay a tax

Actually, in every state which has a sales tax, residents who purchase things out-of-state by mail have to pay the equivalent sales tax.

And if they buy things in stores in other states, and bring them back into their home states, and the tax they paid was less than what they would owe in their home states, they have to pay the difference.

Having companies in a state collect the sales tax for the state is an enforcement mechanism, just as having your employer withhold your income tax.

By the argument made by those who oppose having to pay their sales tax on out-of-state purchases, if your employer didn't withhold your income tax, it would be OK if you didn't pay income tax at all.

Further, most dicussion glosses over the details. Two people go online to purchase a book. One buys from Amazon, one from Barnes and Noble. The first doesn't have their sales tax collected, the second does. Unless the 1st lives in one of 4 states, in which case they have their sales tax collected.

IN what conservative circle would having two people who live in the same place buying the same item over the same internet but paying different tax be considered "reasonable"?

The system as designed is a perfect example of bad government policy -- identified because it skews business behavior in un-natural and non-market-optimizing ways.

The tax laws as written provide benefit to companies that don't establish a brick-and-mortar presense in a state, thus encouraging companies to close down real stores even if they make money, and lay off workers. It encourages companies to consolidate their operations when otherwise it might be cheaper, and better for their customers, to have a more distributed system.

And the entire reason for this consolidated operation is to help people cheat on their taxes. Remember, companies don't pay the sales tax, the consumer does. They just collect it and send it to the government. Amazon benefits from not having to collect the tax, mostly because their customers want to cheat on their state taxes, and Amazon enables them to do so.

BTW, if you believe that cheating on your sales tax is a reasonable, conservative thing to do, why not really follow your convictions, and forge a tax-exempt letter? Then you could get ALL your purchases tax-free, not just the ones you make over the internet? My guess is that most people would "feel" that forging a tax-exempt letter is "wrong", but somehow think that signing their income tax form swearing under oath that they have reported their out-of-state purchase, when they have not, is perfectly fine.

There is a 1992 Supreme Court decision which held that mail-order merchants did not need to collect sales taxes for sales into states where they did not have a physical presence. So contrary to your statement, mail purchases and internet purchases are the same for merchants.

But states can charge a use tax to the individual consumers making purchases out of state for use in a particular state. For example, Florida has a “use tax” for items purchased out of state, including another country, which are brought or delivered into Florida and would have been taxed if purchased in the state. The use tax rate is the same as the sales tax rate.

In other words, individuals may owe the tax but businesses are not required to collect the taxes unless they have a presence in that state. As of today, the states have believed it is too costly to collect those pennies from individual consumers. Big ticket items like cars and boats they do try to collect.

“Fairness” has nothing to do with it. It is not about Amazon helping people to cheat. It is very expensive for a company large or small to keep track of every single penny owed every individual state. Just for starters, they would have to have a sales tax expert from each of the fifty states plus extra employees to handle the collection, recording and payment of these taxes. What if each of the counties and municipalities in each state wanted their sales taxes handled this way too. Amazon might be able to absorb all this extra expense, but the mom and pop operations who sell on line could not. They would be forced out of the mail order business entirely. We haven’t even touched on sales at places like Ebay.

You stated it yourself. Companies are not responsible for paying the sales tax, consumers are responsible for that. It is up to the states to collect the tax from the consumers. But the states have not felt that it is even worth the expense to go after anything but the big ticket items. Why would you want to impose this exorbitant expense on business?

“Orrin Hatch is on the list? Wow! if he is considered conservation our nation is in deep trouble.”

Not to fear, it was only a temporary abberation for the Hatchster. As the list noted:

“Orrin Hatch - Score of 100.00 in 2011 (Lifetime rating of 89.77) [up for reelection in 2012]”

He went from 89.77 to 100.00 getting ready for his reelection, won the primary as a solid conseravative, and now can go back to the Club for his 6th 6-year term and vote any way he wants.