Well, PC Magazine's talking about the ban on an Internet tax coming to an end (or rather, being in need of being made permanent.) My response, as on their message board, follows:

Taxing Internet usage would be absolutely rediculous. It would be like taxing freeway usage - yes, I know there are toll roads, but they're far from common.

Do this because of state and federal budget issues? Why would they shoot themselves in the foot?

Going back to freeway usage as an example, how would they do it? A penny per mile? Charge more for semis, less for motorcycles? Increase or decrease the rate according to if you're within X miles of a city or between them? And while they'd get some of their tax money, how much travel (and more importantly, how much BUSINESS) would decrease - thus getting them less money for the tax and hurting the economy even more?

Similarly, Internet usage - what would they do, charge a penny a megabyte? A penny per email, five cents per website? (This ignores, of course, the ever present privacy issues that this would bring up - I don't want the government snooping in my email, knowing that I bought a "Best of Bread" CD on eBay on October 35th, then visited Megatokyo.com.) Would there be different rates for "just" email, moderate usage, heavy/gaming usage, and businesses?

And how fast would Internet business (where they'd really want to make their money) die down? Where would the "fairness" of websites - where a mom-and-pop business can have a "storefront" that looks just as professional as a multibillion dollar company - go? The mom and pop may not be able to afford to stay in business at that point, or at leasat to keep their website up.

If a tax on Internet usage were passed, you might as well haul all of the congress and the president away for domestic terrorism, because they'd do more damage to the economy of this country - *permanent* damage - than ten 9/11s.