February 24, 2010: Governor Bill Ritter signs a raft of new tax bills into law, including the controversial HB 1193, which forces online retailers to inform consumers of the state taxes owed on purchases made or shipped from Colorado.

March 1: New tax laws take effect.

March 8: Amazon dumps Colorado associates.

March 8: Rasmussen reports McInnis 6 points ahead of HIckenlooper in CO gubernatorial race.

March 8-10: Howls of protest, on all sides of the Amazon sales tax issue. One. Two. Three. Four. More.

There are a couple crucial factors to consider in all this. First, the notion of collecting state taxes on purchases made online is not in itself novel. New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island have adopted similar legislation. Virginia appears poised to do the same.

Two very salient political dynamics motivate the statehouses to challenge the online status quo: State budgets are busting, and brick-and-mortar businesses are crying foul that online businesses don’t have to play by the same taxation rules as everyone else.

Where the argument could have been made that the Colorado legislature was a) improving state services by collecting taxes that are already due and b) leveling the playing field for all Colorado businesses, Amazon’s response Monday undermines both those points. By dumping Colorado affiliates, the state won’t see its taxes and the state business sector as a whole loses out, because consumers will still buy goods online, but those goods will come from vendors in other states.

Enter the governors race, and issues like this one get even thornier. Hickenlooper will campaign on jobs creation, but he’s stuck in the unfortunate position of losing (potentially) Frontier Airlines under his watch and making no comment on the Ritter tax laws, which hurt his position as a member of the (current) majority party. McInnis and Co. are wise to stomp on these issues.

Unfortunately, the state is losing face, state businesses are losing revenues, and John Hickenlooper is losing ground (for now). Not a happy situation in Colorado.

]]> http://coloradoprogressive.com/2010/03/10/amazon-in-colorado-a-lose-lose-lose-situation/feed/ 0 http://coloradoprogressive.com/2010/02/19/mcinnis-looking-at-tough-retooling/ http://coloradoprogressive.com/2010/02/19/mcinnis-looking-at-tough-retooling/#comments Sat, 20 Feb 2010 05:43:59 +0000 Matt Plavnick http://coloradoprogressive.com/?p=373 More support came out today to suggest that Colorado gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis’s apparent popularity just a few months ago was really a statement about Governor Bill Ritter’s unpopularity. Via Colorado Pols, Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post has dropped Colorado from the list of governorships likely to change parties this year. The Pols post cites four reasons for the shift:

1. “Democrat John Hickenlooper is really popular.”
2. “Republican Scott McInnis lost his best narrative for winning when Gov. Bill Ritter announced he would not run for re-election.”
3. “McInnis can talk about building business and growing jobs, but Hickenlooper has actually done it in the private sector. Repeatedly.”
4. “An incredible 37 Governors are up for re-election in 2010, including 22 that are open seats. Hick is going to raise as much (and likely more) money than McInnis, and given all the points above, it’s hard to see how McInnis is going to convince big national GOP interests that his race is worthy of top-tier consideration.”

Reasons two and four strike me as the most important for the McInnis campaign to reckon. Scott McInnis never really had to introduce himself to the public early in his bid, because the important thing was he wasn’t Bill Ritter.  Now, Team McInnis must recast the narrative–and point three from Colorado Pols nails the challenge there–and get his fundraising machine well oiled and tanked up, potentially without a lot of help from the national Republican party.

By comparison, Scott McInnis, Politician, enjoys 1,954 Facebook fans.