The Supreme Court overruled its prior decisions in a historic decision this week that will allow politicians to tap into Internet sales with new taxes. President Donald Trump has praised the decision in allowing Internet sales to be now subject to taxation from all 50 states. The decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair overturns the prior 1992 ruling in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota (what is it about those Dakotas and Internet taxes?). South Dakota wanted to take a cut of Internet sales even though these business have no property or employees in the state. To do so, the Supreme Court had to guy its prior requirement of a physical presence in a given state. It just did by a vote of 5-4. The opinion also contains a body blow to the doctrine of stare decisis (“to stand on the decisions”) under which the Court strives to maintain its own prior decisions. We now have a doctrine of abdicare decisis (“To ignore the decisions).
Sales taxes have always struck a sour note for me. The state taxes you when you make money and then you get taxed again when you make profits over investments. Then you get taxed again when you buy items with the previously taxed income. For those with a gripe against sales taxes, this is far, far more problematic. The states literally are doing nothing. They are not providing services to a physical store or maintaining employment rolls or permitting services. They just want their cut of money from the sales.
That is more of a policy and constitutional argument. The later question is one that turns on the dormant commerce clause power to restrict state taxation of interstate commerce. The Court now believes that having 50 states taking their cuts of interstate commerce at differing rates is not a restriction on interstate commerce.
The opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy states:
That said, South Dakota’s tax system includes several features that appear designed to prevent discrimination against or undue burdens upon interstate commerce. First, the Act applies a safe harbor to those who transact only limited business in South Dakota. Second, the Act ensures that no obligation to remit the sales tax may be applied retroactively. S. B. 106, §5. Third, South Dakota is one of more than 20 States that have adopted the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement. This system standardizes taxes to reduce administrative and compliance costs: It requires a single, state-level tax administration, uniform definitions of products and services, simplified tax rate structures, and other uniform rules. It also provides sellers access to sales tax administration software paid for by the State. Sellers who choose to use such software are immune from audit liability. See App. 26–27. Any remaining claims regarding the application of the Commerce Clause in the absence of Quill and Bellas Hess may be addressed in the first instance on remand.
Kennedy’s majority opinion was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Neil Gorsuch. An interesting line up. Thomas and Gorsuch wrote concurrences. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Stephen Breyer, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Justice Elena Kagan dissented.
The issue is now a political not constitutional one. Congress however is largely looking at proposals that allow taxation but organizes who gets what among the given states. The result is that consumers are going to get clipped with new taxes and politicians will be able to manipulate rates as one more avenue of revenue.There are now 31 states currently have laws taxing internet sales. This is now likely to go to a solid 50.
One of the more interesting elements of the opinion was the discarding of any hold of the doctrine of stare decisis in maintaining prior decisions in the interests of consistency and integrity of the Court. I have long argued that stare decisis is honored primarily in the breach and that these justices rarely cite the doctrine except in dissent for transparently opportunistic reasons. When they really want to overturn prior cases, it seems like barely a speed bump to where they want to go.
Justice Kennedy made fast work of the doctrine:
“Although we approach the reconsideration of our decisions with the utmost caution, stare decisis is not an inexorable command.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U. S. 223, 233 (2009) (quoting State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U. S. 3, 20 (1997); alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). Here, stare decisis can no longer support the Court’s prohibition of a valid exercise of the States’ sovereign power.
If it becomes apparent that the Court’s Commerce Clause decisions prohibit the States from exercising their lawful sovereign powers in our federal system, the Court should be vigilant in correcting the error. While it can be conceded that Congress has the authority to change the physical presence rule, Congress cannot change the constitutional default rule. It is inconsistent with the Court’s proper role to ask Congress to address a false constitutional premise of this Court’s own creation. Courts have acted as the front line of review in this limited sphere; and hence it is important that their principles be accurate and logical, whether or not Congress can or will act in response. It is currently the Court, and not Congress, that is limiting the lawful prerogatives of the States.
Chief Justice Roberts’s dissent calls for application of a higher standard of stare decisis in cases where Congress can act :
This Court “does not overturn its precedents lightly.” Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, 572 U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (slip op., at 15). Departing from the doctrine of stare decisis is an “exceptional action” demanding “special justification.” Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U. S. 203, 212 (1984). The bar is even higher in fields in which Congress “exercises primary authority” and can, if it wishes, override this Court’s decisions with contrary legislation. Bay Mills, 572 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 16) (tribal sovereign immunity); see, e.g., Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 576 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 8) (statutory interpretation); Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc., 573 U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (slip op., at 12) (judicially created doctrine implementing a judicially created cause of action). In such cases, we have said that “the burden borne by the party advocating the abandonment of an established precedent” is “greater” than usual. Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 172 (1989). That is so “even where the error is a matter of serious concern, provided correction can be had by legislation.” Square D Co. v. Niagara Frontier Tariff Bureau, Inc., 476 U. S. 409, 424 (1986) (quoting Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U. S. 393, 406 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)).
We have applied this heightened form of stare decisis in the dormant Commerce Clause context. Under our dormant Commerce Clause precedents, when Congress has not yet legislated on a matter of interstate commerce, it is the province of “the courts to formulate the rules.” Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U. S. 761, 770 (1945). But because Congress “has plenary power to regulate commerce among the States,” Quill, 504 U. S., at 305, it may at any time replace such judicial rules with legislation of its own, see Prudential Ins. Co. v. Benjamin, 328 U. S. 408, 424–425 (1946).
The case is South Dakota v. Wayfair, No. 17-494.
Raise taxes or cut expenditures? Will there ever be a time when there is enough political will to put this sacred cow on the table? 🤔 “Can You Think of Any Other Ways to Spend $716 Billion?
The Senate passed a military budget bill that, among other things, earmarks money for shiny new nukes…The annual increase by itself is bigger than the annual defense budget of Russia ($61 billion) and the two-year jump of over $165 billion eclipses the entire defense budget of China ($150 billion).” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/military-budget-2019-w521788
My only hope, is that those having to collect, remit taxes to states with no nexus, sue the states for lack of services received from those states. Every business receives services from the state they are based in.
What next? States suing for property & inventory taxes, even though the company has no nexus in that state?
Is this lost on people, liberals, progs, democ-rats and RINOs don’t need a constitutional basis for taxation?
Just tax the idiots, we’ll find SOMETHING to spend it on – no worries – the lazy, greedy, thug teachers unions will be striking next month, we’ll give it to them.
It’s the taxation, stupid! Tax and spend no end.
Where are the Founders when you need them? Oh yeah, they’re in the Constitution. Congress has ONLY the power to tax for GENERAL WELFARE, not INDIVIDUAL WELFARE.
__________
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes,…to…provide for the…general Welfare of the United States;…”
__________
Individual welfare was deliberately omitted and, thereby, excluded by the Framers. Karl Marx introduced individual welfare in the Communist Manifesto. To wit,
“From each according to his ability, from each according to his need.”
Last time I checked, the Communist Manifesto did not hold dominion in the United States. The entire redistributionist American welfare state is irrefutably unconstitutional. Charity is industry conducted in the free markets of the private sector.
Is there a constitutional scholar of high repute in the house?
Certainly isn’t you.
I very much understand your need for prevarication and evasion.
You’re a genius!
I am no advocate of sales taxes or VAT, a sales tax by another name. But the original decision by the supremes was wrong and has now been corrected.
The sales tax is owned by the purchaser. It has, from time out of mind, been collected by the retailer for the convenience of the purchasers.
David Benson owes me three citations after a month, one from the OED, and the source of a quotation – sales tax is owed by the vendor but is allowed to be passed on to the purchaser. However, in some cases, like movie tickets, it is part of the admission price.
Making Stuff Up again.
David Benson owes me three citations after a month, one from the OED, and the source of a quotation – prove that I am not making stuff up.
I never agreed to what you claim in boldface. Not even as a comment here on Turley’s blog. Go check all the back comments.
Just Making Stuff Up, you do…
David Benson owes me four citations after a month, one from the OED, and the source of a quotation – David, if you agreed to do what you were supposed to do, I would not have to put it in bold. Or, if you actually did it.
What a misconstrued sentence!
There is no agreement. Go look.
David Benson owes me four citations after a month, one from the OED, and the source of a quotation – there is an unwritten rule that if you make a claim and you are called on it, you must back it up. You have never backed up a claim. You just Make Stuff Up.
Neither have you, PCS, and you’ve been called on many.
M. Howard – you are right, however, since I have been so hard on David Benson, I have been much better. 😉 This wouldn’t have started if he hadn’t started playing in my sandbox.
It’s not your sandbox, fool. It is a blog written by Turley that you happen to comment on.
Your comments, by the way, typically useless, rarely if ever credited, and trivial to the point of meaninglessness, are beyond any worth.
Instead you badger others, demand actions you fail to perform, and claim it is your sandbox.
You are a delusional fool.
No such rule when you can as readily, or more so, find the stuff yourself.
You just make it up as you go along. I won’t play your foolish games, oh yee of little intellect.
David Benson owes me four citations after a month, one from the OED, and the source of a quotation – I am not the one who cannot back up what I say.
Continuing to Make Stuff Up!
I’m in Texas, according the law here, the consumer, purchaser, etc .. is liable for the taxes. The vendor’s only liability is the transference of received taxable funds to the state (and to collect the tax of course). Pretty much the same in every state I know of. If the vendor were liable, they would owe taxes as soon as the merchandise was put into inventory, not when it was sold to a consumer. This isn’t the case, at least in Texas.
At least in my home state the government imposes a Use Tax on most items brought into the state when no taxation was paid either in a foreign state where the purchase occurred or the result of interstate commerce.
Washington is a state in which, I suppose like most, many politicians crave taxation and tax damn near everything under the sun; the exception being income tax and only because the state supreme court declared individual income taxes unconstitutional and the fact that many political careers will end if such a measure is passed. (Except liberal democrats in constituencies clamoring for income tax)
Essentially the law requires individuals and organizations to pay the tax they owe in order to be compliant with the tax laws. The other edge of the sword is that another interpretation is that in complying with the tax laws, individuals and organizations have a duty to follow the law in such a way that minimizes what they pay in tax as a result of their actions.
Personally, I believe that an individual has an underlying moral obligation to pay as little tax as legally allowable. I hold this belief for several reasons, among others:
Practical Sports – have you looked at the sales tax law in Texas?
Practical Sports – here is the information from the State of Arizona. https://azdor.gov/transaction-privilege-tax-tpt
Businesses are getting taxed on the same money over and over and over again, and just the paperwork burden alone gets onerous.
This is like the “Tuppence” scene in Mary Poppins. Can’t dangle a copper in front of a politician without him or her grasping for it.
That’s how we get stupid public works projects to waste that windfall, like paying $40,000/mile to paint Los Angeles streets white to lower the heat island effect of asphalt surface temperatures from 150 degrees to 140 degrees on a 100 degree day. CoolSeal will only last 7 years, who knows what effect runoff contamination will do to water quality, and it doesn’t affect greenhouse gas emissions, but rather slightly reduces surface temperature. What is the actual cost savings, on a 100 degree day, in air conditioning if the surface temperature of the asphalt is 140 instead of 100? It’s still 100 degrees out on those days, and AC is still going to run.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/04/10/los-angeles-painting-city-streets-white-in-bid-to-combat-climate-change.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/los-angeles-is-painting-some-of-its-streets-white-and-the-reasons-why-are-pretty-cool/
Karen: I’m here in L.A. but I haven’t seen it yet. Thanks for posting it, though. Very interesting.
There definitely is a heat island effect in L.A. that any non-scientist can measure with the touch of their hand. On summer evenings, an hour after dark, one can feel heat radiating off brick buildings. So I would imagine that hundreds of miles of asphalt streets can have a cumulative effect. Ideas like white surface coating are certainly worth exploring. To dismiss them as a ‘stupid waste’ strikes me as stupid.
The borderless internet has made a mockery of laws, law-enforcement, self-governing jurisdictions and taxation authority. This Wayfair decision is a baby step in the direction of adapting the legal foundation to regain a measure of public control over the activities mediated by connected computing. Let’s keep the pressure up to come up with practical deterrence of everyday cybercrime and cyberattacks. And, let’s hope internet usage policies are decided in more learned chambers than SCOTUS. It’s not set up or staffed as a policy-making body, and will blunder badly thrust into this role by Congressional dirilection of duty.
What’s next? If I go on vacation to sales-tax-free Montana, my home state can force me to pay sales tax?
SCOTUS is the worst perp in all the nation, made up of judges who routinely interpret the Constitution to favor government and corporations, rewarding stockholders by rule, the hell with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all. SCOTUS actually ruled personhood for corporations while denying it, unbelievably, for unborn babies. SCOTUS’ worship of sacrifice of human life on altars and Ginsberg’s public hatred of Trump exemplifies just how corrupt and unblinded justice is at the highest level in the land.
Sales taxes have always struck a sour note for me. The state taxes you when you make money and then you get taxed again when you make profits over investments. Then you get taxed again when you buy items with the previously taxed income. For those with a gripe against sales taxes, this is far far more problematic. The states literally are doing nothing. They are not providing services to a physical store or maintaining employment rolls or permitting services. They just want their cut of money from the sales.
You can tax consumption, you can tax income, or you can tax property. There are also tolls and fares of various sorts and some fees. Which measure you use is going to depend on how readily they can be administered, the effect on pareto efficiency, and the distributional effects. Each sort of tax has its advantages and disadvantages. What you really should be concerned with is the total quantum of public expenditure, minimizing the degree to which tax regimes favor one sector over another, containing externalities, and cross-compensating impecunious people so the tax and transfer regime at least holds them harmless in re their quantum of real income.
So, the Supreme Court has again essentially changed what the Commerce Clause inherently limits.
The idea of the Commerce Clause was that as a default only the federal government could regulate commerce between the states.
The prohibition of one state charging sales tax (or whatever one cares to call it) for sales originating, or destined, in another state is exactly what the Commerce Clause was supposed to prohibit, absent some explicit regulation from the federal government.
The SCOTUS’s logic in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, applied to mail order catalogs and any other cross state sales from one state resident to another state’s resident, made perfect sense and respected what the Commerce Clause was supposed to limit — ad hoc commerce regulation from one state to another state.
Now SCOTUS has taken the reins off, states are given a free hand to independently tax whatever and however they want in commerce between them as a default, essentially another deep corruption of the Constitutional prohibition against it.
Now, instead of Congress having to say nothing, and the states needing proper authorization from the federal government to do this, the states can do it unless Congress says no.
We are no longer Constitutionally protected from the vagaries of avaricious states to whom no amount of taxation is too much, but must beg the federal Congress to protect us from this taxation, a political act that most Congresscritters will bow down to the more powerful state governments rather than their own constituents.
So much for State Economics ….
The brick-and-mortar lobby is wholey responsible for internet sales tax collection, After complaining that the playimg field wasn’t level because internet purveyors had an advantage by not charging sales tax. Amazon fought the lobby but lost, largely because bloated, greedy bureaucrats threw in with the brick-and-mortar lobby. Even after the playing field had been leveled, brick-and-mortar stores not only continued to lose revenue but also accelerated the rate of store closings.
Sales tax had nothing at all to do with unlevel playing fields. High overhead of retail sales had everything to do with the playing field. I can buy car parts online for a fraction of the price of retail stores, the brand and model identical to what can be found at, say, AutoZone.
Why is Trump hiding on this matter? Surely he must realize that whatever tax cut he had engineered for consumers, now evaporates while government accelerates its growth and the economy slows down.
The two pronged second cut and making it permanent. But that will depend on how much the voters want to keep control of their own money and get the socialist bleep bleep out of their hind end. They will doubtless get what they deserve.
Rubbish. Subjecting one set of tradesmen to the tax and not another has everything to do with leveling the playing field.
You make one set of retail sales tax exempt you have to raise taxes on every other sort of retail sales or raise property taxes or raise income taxes.
Or, they could cut state spending. No, wait, we know that’s not going to happen, so they can start adding fees on top of sales tax. I was in CA earlier this year and wanted to help my elderly parents with some home repairs. I purchased lumber, and noticed on the receipt that in addition to the 9% sales tax, CA also charged a “reforestation fee” on lumber sales. Huh? Several days later I bought paint, and the receipt reflected some type of environmental fee. So what’s going on is that the voracious state government is adding various fees to the already steep 9% sales tax, essentially increasing the tax to about 12%.
So Abdicare decis is the way to go on asking for a revisit to the overturned but voted by Congress and Signature Term Limits and the rejection of the States right to handle their own elections procedures including recall of the S te Delegate to the Federal Congress. Another arrow in the quiver for when those subjects come up which is often.
In the past we learned any State Attorney General could get access to both the National Attorney General and the Supreme Court directly, not sure if those States’s Rights are still in effect but my begging question this time is what is the most direct route from the citizens to SCOTUS using Para One as an eIxample?
Back to Amazon
. I’m assuming it has to do with the point of sale not the point of buyer nor the point of shipper? Couldn’t readily find that distinction but prior internet sales left untaxed in order to spur grown of that industry appears to have made itself ripe for plucking which means the little guy will be barred once again unless they use Amazon or eBuy which is no longer the nation’s yard sale.
In passing if someone with more time on their hands than I can state those answers thank you very much in advance.
I supect California will be the first to leap jaws wide follwoed by NY and Mass. California wasted not a second on their ‘found money’ aka the tax cut to the working class before gorging at the new feast table and that will be the end of any economic recovery for California. and of course in Mass they have no one to represent them that isn’t a hog trougher herself.
How!
Fine and you?
Pay 50% wampum from tax cut and 260-% to support the poor of Canada.
What?
Still later
I’m sad we are leaving California but then beauty is only skin deep.
I left CA about 15 years ago and have never regretted it. I am financially way better off than I could ever be in CA. I have a nice, big house in a safe, middle-class neighborhood. If I were still in CA I would be living in a grossly overpriced dump in a crappy neighborhood.
What about the selling state? If an item is bought in South Dakota and sold in California, should not both states be able to collect their own sales tax? But wait, the shipped item traveled through several other states. Should those states not also be allowed to collect sales taxes? Seems to me they should – after all, a sold item used their roads and/or their air space to be delivered to the end user.
On a more serious note, it’s hard for me to imagine how the court can decide that a state taxing sales by a company which is not present in its own state is not interfering in interstate commerce.
That is a constitutional question already settled from inception. Interstate trade and the full faith and credit portion for the rest which I might add has nothing to do with finance. but the interstate trade sections will give you an answer less that ignored by predator governments like California , Massachusetts and New York New Jersey.
But wait, the shipped item traveled through several other states. Should those states not also be allowed to collect sales taxes? Seems to me they should – after all, a sold item used their roads and/or their air space to be delivered to the end user.
If you’re actually are concerned about that, the road maintenance can be financed through tolls, fuel taxes, and licensing fees.
What about the selling state? If an item is bought in South Dakota and sold in California, should not both states be able to collect their own sales tax?
The item is bought and sold in South Dakota. It is merely transported to California.
Amazon collects taxes based on where the item is shipped to. Thus if I have a book shipped to my home in Maryland, I pay 6% tax. If I have the same book shipped my my sister in CA, I pay 9% sales tax. Lots of folks in MD, DC, VA, PA and even NJ drive over to Delaware to do their Christmas shopping at the large, no sales tax malls in Queenstown. It’s not worth the price of gas for me to drive over the bridge for an occasional item, but if I’m going to be buying a lot of items or a new iPad or other expensive item, it’s worth shopping in tax free DE and combining it with a day at the beach. Prof Turley may wish to consider buying his suits in Delaware, hahaha.
Not sure what the practice has been for mail order sales. Consistency should be the goal. We might benefit from an interstate compact on such matters.
To even the playing field between internet sales and bricks and mortar sales, Washington should impose a national VAT or value added tax that is deductible from any existing state sales tax or from which any existing state sales tax is deductible. So, you only pay tax once, perhaps not at the same rate, and everything is taxed, only once at the sale. The revenue should be used for education, health care, etc. Increase taxes on garbage like booze, potato chips, and other stuff that increases the national health costs. Get rid of the private sector in health care insurance. Things would be better. It all comes down to money. The BS about the constitution and these or those rights can be argued either way as lawyers rub off self gratification after self gratification.
Should have known the communists would rapidly take the bait on the chance to add yet another surtax on the already overloaded commercial businesses who then simply pass it on to the end consumer at the cash register and thus Isaac bacon head’s proposal is exposed for what it is another rip off of the working class citizens by his oh so very international socialist masters. Stuff it and go back to Canada or where ever we are busy getting rid of your kind.
The key words in the whole rant from Lenin junior were “The BS about the constitution and these or those rights.” Nothing more need be said and that one portion lays bare the real reason and the real goal. The rest IS bovine effluent as the left seeks to regain control by any maeans possible which after all is the good old fashion fascist way for those like Isaac.
With the added cost of shipping+tax=less Internet sales and UPS, FedEx and USPS will all suffer. All the states need to get their “run away” budgets under control. You have to admit all politicians suck no matter what they call themselves.
I’m not so sure your conclusion is correct. Amazon has been collecting local/state taxes for years. Its revenue and that of its shippers has increased.
But at least we had a choice. If I needed an item, I could usually buy it from Amazon, which would deliver it more quickly, but charge me sales tax, or buy it from someone who didn’t charge sales tax. Unless I needed the item quickly, I would always opt for the no-tax merchant.
They all have one thing in common. too many Baconovitch’s sniffing the trail of found money and lapping up the benefits to the working class of the tax cut to the benefit of……. why it’s Baconovitches ruling class once again. Seig anhy Heils lately Isaac?
I absolutely agree with this decision. It only makes sense. The problem will be if the counties, cities, and towns get involved.
That stated th eproblem not addressed by SCOTUS. Who gets to divide up the pie? Well Amazon is holding off building their new distribution centers for one but it will go to which ever states are economicallyh savvy enough to avoid like the plague the moocher states like California , New York, Massachusetts etc. Floridas very low sales tax with frequent tax less days and no income tax has proven that point. While Washington States Gregoir proves there is alway around anything if you don’t mind screwing the population for the benefit of the ruling class … in Little Red Book Terms.
South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard, Senators John Thune and Mike Rounds are chumps.
No explanation? Ahh well REJECTED.
Again, Diane, people leave you alone and you might have the courtesy to do the same. Except you cannot manage it. Because jerk.
Poor Jeff Bezos. Brick and mortar may make a come back now!
Not hardly. Anazon’s sales have increased year over year since its inception. And online shopping’s share of overall sales has increased every year in the last 10 years. I believe its share is over 35%.
Which was due, in part, to the ability of consumers to avoid sales tax. If I needed an expensive tool, I could buy it online and avid the sales tax, saving $10 or more. Now I might as well go to the Home Depot 1 mile from my house. I doubt this will do much for brick and mortar, mom and pop hardware stores. They’ve already been crushed by the big box stores, so it just means more money for the states to p!ss away.
Exactly the biggest market share is comprised of Walmart/Sams Club, Amazon, and the Dollar Stores. Customers go to where they can afford to buy and it ain’t the malls no more no more.
Well the decision did just come out yesterday!
Not really and when did Big Brick And Mortar give two hoots about little brick and mortar or even lemonade stands. NEVER! Now they cry foul because it is their turn to play the dinosaur.
I think this will hurt a lot of eBay retailers and companies in rural areas that lack sufficient foot traffic to stay in business. They could compete due to internet sales, but if consumers now have to pay sales tax, these retailers will no longer have a price advantage over the big box stores.
Amazon, QVC and other big retailers have always remitted state sales taxes. This only affects small to medium businesses, and the accounting alone will seriously hurt them. Well, gotta pay for those child prisons somehow.
The DHS child care facilities are funded by the federal government, not any state. They were created to care for children who were either sent alone, or brought to this country illegally by their parents. In addition to prosecution for illegal entry into the U.S., these parents should be prosecuted for child endangerment. In the meanwhile, their children are safe, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. Would you rather that the children be pushed across the border to make the trek back to Central America by themselves, where they would be vulnerable to human predators, animal predators, heat, dehydration, and starvation? It’s unfortunate that these cynical parents are trying to use their own children as pawns to gain entry to the U.S., but the only reasonable solution is for the federal government to put the children in facilities where they will be safe.
And BTW, I do agree with your first two sentences. But the hyperbole of your last sentence undermines your credibility.
There is poor oversight in those detention facilities. They are a rather recent and hidden development. In Florida even Sen. Bill Nelson could not gain access to the children imprisoned in Homestead. Even though his office had made prior arrangements he was turned back at the door. It is a problem for me when our Federal government has thousands of people in detention camps for months and years with no access to the inmates from their families, and no access or accountability to the cities and states they are housed in.
‘Safe’ is a matter of perspective.
“Amazon, QVC and other big retailers have always remitted state sales taxes.” Only in the states they had a nexus in. States passed laws, and sued these companies to force out of state tax nexuses on them. SC just upheld that with this decision.