Big Government Wants a Piece of Internet Sales

Is there anyone who doesn't shop for better buys on the internet? I didn't think so. And, one of the reasons why is because you can buy a lot of goods cheaper than you can at your local stores. Right? Well. Yeah. You can. And, part of that savings comes because the internet sales dealers don't charge and don't pay sales taxes. Taxes that would be passed along to the customers if collected.

If a current proposal is passed, that will come to a halt. There's a move to require sellers and, therefore, buyers to fork over a sales tax. The end result is that you'll be paying more. And, why shouldn't you? I don't want to pay any more than I must, but I also know that sales tax is used to fund government. If government doesn't get revenue from these sales sources, then they'll get it some other way.

Consider this. Internet Sales Guy charges $100 for an item he buys for $80. He has no overhead, no sales staff (generally speaking), and likely no business that he pays property taxes on. He can sell his product and have a net profit of $20. Shipping fees are added to the charges, but sales tax is not.
And, likely, he can move a LOT of product, nationally and internationally. With virtually no overhead. Therefore, he gets a better price from his supplier. Better than most small stores offering the same product.

Now consider this. Your local, neighborhood store carries a variety of products, items he has already paid for, at whatever price his distributor wants to charge him. All too often, the store pays as much to his distributor as the on-line dealer sells it for. Just for the sake of argument, let's consider that the store has to pay $100 for the same product that you can buy for $100 from the internet dealer. Let's assume he marks up the $100 item to $150. Outrageous, you think. A whopping $50 profit, even if you know the internet sales guy gets $20 for his investment.

Every day, consumers come to the store, check out the items they want, talk to the store's clerk, get advice, make a choice, then leave and order it on-line at a lower price. The local store has to maintain inventory, pay property taxes, pay employees, pay unemployment taxes, keep records, pay bookkeepers, pay sales taxes, all for what you consider to be an outrageous $50 markup. And, he has to try and compete with the on-line stores. To top that, the money you send to those on-line, out of state dealers, doesn't benefit the local economy one bit.

No wonder so many small, local businesses are going under.

Maybe an internet sales tax is a step in the right direction. Maybe it will make local stores at least one step closer to being competitive.

You No Longer Have The Right to.....

Yep, I spent quite some time informing a variety of people of their "rights" under Miranda. That, during another life.

Well, Americans, I am here to tell you that "you no longer have the right to...". Ok, so that's not exactly true. Not yet. But, given the veiled threat of our Wonderboy-in-Chief, I fully expect one of the rights that our founding fathers included in that "just a piece of paper" we call the Constitution a couple centuries back, a Constitution that has, until the near future, served us so well, will become null and void. With Obama's threat this week, I expect he will issue one of his infamous Executive Orders, an order that will neuter our Second Amendment. In case you failed history and you've had your head buried in the sand, this amendment is part of our Bill of Rights, and so simply states that

A well regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
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Now, I'm not an English scholar, but I can understand each and every word in this single-sentence, oh, so important document.

But, back to the topic at hand.

You can fool some of the people some of the time,

But, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

I’m not the first person to say that, and those words surfaced in my memory banks this week when the necessary majority vote to control one more of our Constitutional rights befittingly died on the vine.

What liberals, along with those conservative senators who aren’t as conservative as they fool us into believing, learned is that common sense is prevailing, that we are not going to be fooled into buying into the plan that democrats waited for almost ten years to ram down our throats and up our backsides.

Since the last gun-rights grabbing nonsensical ban expired in 2004, rights-grabbing elements have waited for an opportunity, an opportunity that presented itself in the image of a mad man in December in Connecticut, leaving 26 kids and educators, the mother of the nut, and the nut himself, dead. Without missing a beat, bills were dusted off, bills that would have added even more controls to gun possession, bills that, even if they had been laws prior to December, would not have changed the outcome in Sandy Hook.

But, anti gunners, never wanting to waste a tragedy, jumped up and did everything they could to make it more difficult for good people to get guns, even calling for severe penalties for those who would not get on board the Rights Grabbing plan.

And, to hear our excuse for a leader tell us that it’s a shameful day goes to show how truly ashamed we, those who actually support our Constitution, are of him. Mr. President…and, I only say “Mr.” out of respect for the office, and definitely not for the man…we are ashamed of you. You're a man who, by hook and crook, managed to get yourself appointed to that position. You're a man who has successfully fooled a majority of Americans; but…remember, Mr. President...not ALL Americans are fooled.

Perhaps, those of you who supported gun rights grabs, you were confused. This administration has been pretty successful in doing just that. I do not know of one law abiding gun owner…and I stress “law abiding”…who wants nuts and bad people to have access to guns, knives, grenades, or pressure cookers. But, a blanket “enhanced” background check would have been a dangerous first step towards gun registration and, ultimately, gun confiscation (look at history if you doubt that). There would have been a ban on so-called assault weapons, a weapons list that included a lot of hunting guns (control the language, control the servants), a ridiculous ban on high capacity magazines…give it some thought, people…I don’t have to have a magazine that holds 20 rounds  because I can do just as much damage with two ten round magazines because it takes about 2 seconds to switch magazines for even a moderately good shooter. Banning these guns or magazines would have only served to make gun rights grabbers feel better. And, it would have been the First Step. 

Constitutional followers, beware. The commander in chief and his band of idiots have vowed they’ll take other steps. In time…in short order…I see this boy-leader signing an executive order that will impact law abiding gun owners all over this country.

And, when the men in black come a'knocking, telling you that someone has alleged that you have a gun, I suggest you remember the words of a retired ATF agent who wrote a really cool book. Deny the allegations and Damn the Allegators. Admit nothing, and offer neither assistance nor physical resistance.