Provide broadband

Below the usual Julia Randle religious ramblings on Monday’s Voices page, Fred Verser opined that revenue from any future out-of-state Internet sales tax, estimated to be $35 million per year, should be kept from going “anywhere near” the general revenue fund and instead be allocated to the lottery scholarship fund. I have a different idea.

The purpose of a sales tax is to provide services from which both we and local businesses benefit, such as road/street maintenance to allow us to drive to the business, a fire department to keep the business from burning down, a police department to keep gangbangers from robbing us in the parking lot, and a justice system to lock them up when they do. But what would we and the out-of-state businesses get for taxes that they would be obliged to collect and we’d be obliged to pay? The out-of-state businesses would gain nothing from subsidizing our state-run numbers racket; they would only benefit if the revenue was used to facilitate our doing business with them, just as the locally collected taxes do.

Since we are not traveling physically to those businesses, I suggest that any bill requiring them to collect and us to pay out-of-state Internet sales taxes also require the state to use the revenue to provide broadband Internet access to us out here in the boonies. If so, I would be in favor of it and I’d re-allocate the $500 I now pay annually for Internet access to shopping online.

If, however, the state is just going to let the Legislature pay off their buddies and line their own pockets from the general revenue fund, as has been the past practice that Mr. Verser wants to avoid, I am not in favor of more taxation. PHIL WARNER Garfield