But I guess they always stand and sing the national anthem. The average American pays more in taxes than for food, clothing, shelter, and transportation combined. As I indicated earlier, despite claims that the era of big government is over, Washington bureaucracies did well during the last eight years. Supposedly, we'll have to fire thousands of police and teachers. However, the facts quickly disprove this type of groundless hysteria.
State governments are flush with money.
From 1994-1999, total state taxes, including traditional sales taxes, grew at almost twice the rate of inflation and population. State and local government tax receipts grew by over 30 percent during this period. In turn, these businesses have returned massive amounts of revenue to states and localities through the taxes currently in place. Adding taxes to the Internet would adversely affect e-commerce and in turn stifle the revenue growth that we have seen in most types of state and local taxes. A 1999 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded that applying existing sales taxes to the Internet would slash the number of online buyers by 25 percent and plummet purchases by 30 percent or more.