Senator-elect John Kennedy has publically taken a stand that seems absolutely to be against the politician's credo.

In recent comments, the former State Treasurer suggested that the announcement by Amazon.com that they would be requiring Louisiana shoppers to pay sales tax won't be a good thing for Louisiana.

Hang on, did we just read that a Louisiana elected official was against taxing the residents of the state to get more money? Go home John, you're drunk. Okay, the soon to be Senator is not drunk nor even tipsy, heck he might not even drink. However, I think he explains himself pretty well.

If you give government the right to get money as a result of people’s interaction with the internet, government will never stop, and they’ll kill the internet sooner or later.

As you might imagine many lawmakers are jumping for joy at the prospect of having an additional  $30 million a year for Louisiana. Kennedy suggests in his comments to the Louisiana Radio Network that throwing more money the legislature won't fix our state's budget woes. It just places a bigger burden on the backs of the state's citizens.

You’ve got to ask where this money’s coming from, and I can tell you where it’s coming from. It’s not falling from heaven, it’s coming out of taxpayers’ pockets.

If I am interpreting the Senator-elect's train of thought correctly he is saying until we get government spending under control additional money won't be the fix. It would be like allowing a rat to have more cheese to cure its weight problem.

The new policy will go into effect on January 1st. But it's not a new law. Louisiana law already requires taxpayers to self-report their online purchases and pay the taxes, but most online shoppers do not. Kennedy lays the blame for not collecting this money squarely on the shoulders of the Department of Revenue.

They ought to go enforce the law if they think the money’s due. But I’ll tell you why they’re not going to do that, because it’ll make people mad. Instead of doing their own job and enforcing the law, they want to make Amazon be the bad guy.

Regardless as of January 1, 2017, any purchase made online via the Amazon website will require you to include sales tax as part of your purchase. Whether or not that sales tax money will go to help our state or be squandered by inept lawmakers remains to be seen.

 

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