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from the no-taxation-without-something-or-other dept.
A U.S. House of Representatives committee has approved a bill that would permanently extend a moratorium on broadband access and Internet-specific taxes that Congress has temporarily extended three times over the past 16 years. The House Judiciary Committee's 30-4 vote Wednesday sends the bill to the full House for a vote. The bill would also have to pass the Senate before becoming law. The bill, called the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act [PITFA], would also remove past exemptions for seven states, including Texas and Ohio, that had Internet taxes in place before the moratorium first passed in 1998.
A permanent tax moratorium on Internet-only taxes will allow the Internet to continue to drive the U.S. economy and serve "as the greatest gateway to knowledge and engine of self improvement that has ever existed," said Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican and committee chairman. The current Internet tax moratorium expires Nov. 1. "If the moratorium is not renewed, the potential tax burden on consumers will be substantial," with access tax rates that would likely exceed 10 percent, Goodlatte said.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday June 20 2014, @02:58PM
Wikipedia says, "A moratorium is a delay or suspension of an activity or a law. In a legal context, it may refer to the temporary suspension of a law to allow a legal challenge to be carried out."
Delay - temporary
Suspension - isn't this temporary? Otherwise it would be a ban or a disbarment or something? (If so, "temporary suspension" would be redundant.)
So I guess the way I read this is, "It's gonna stay this way forever...until we have a reason to change it."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday June 20 2014, @04:20PM
Your title included the word "Permanent", yet your pedantry seemed to ignore that word all together.
All laws are temporary.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday June 20 2014, @04:35PM
A permanent law would be one that survives until the end of the current government (although that might be a bit fuzzy anyway). A permanent U.S. law assumes that the U.S. government continues to exist, otherwise it wouldn't be a *U.S.* law anymore.
If we accept "moratorium" as being inherently temporary, "Permanent moratorium" expands to "permanent temporary suspension" which would cancel to "suspension," I guess? The whole phrase seems rather paradoxical to me because, as you pointed out, laws aren't really permanent either.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday June 20 2014, @04:37PM
Cf. "more unique"
I'm a programmer. I like having what we're talking about be well-defined, or know that it's inherently undefinable.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"