Ted Cruz: Regulating the Internet threatens entrepreneurial freedom
By Ted Cruz November 13 at 8:31 AM
Ted Cruz, a Republican, represents Texas in the Senate.
Never before has it been so easy to turn an idea into a business. With a simple Internet connection, some ingenuity and a lot of hard work, anyone today can create a new service or app or start selling products nationwide.
In the past, such a person would have to know the right people and raise substantial start-up capital to get a brick-and-mortar store running. Not anymore. The Internet is the great equalizer when it comes to jobs and opportunity. We should make a commitment, right now, to keep it that way.
The next generation of Internet-connected devices, apps and services will generate trillions of dollars of global economic growth in the years ahead. And Americans are perfectly poised to take maximum advantage — if the government doesn’t take those opportunities away in the form of crushing taxes, rules and regulations.
Yet the threats from Washington to stifle freedom, entrepreneurship and creativity online have never been greater. Washington politicians want the money, and they want more and more control over our speech.
Four basic principles should guide policymakers, in a bipartisan manner, to preserve America’s leadership role in developing the future of the Internet.
First, we must abandon the idea of further taxing Internet access and sales. At this very moment, online retailers face an enormous threat because Washington may pass a massive, new Internet sales tax during the next two months, in the lame-duck session of Congress. As the hashtag puts it,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ted-cruz-regulating-the-internet-threatens-entrepreneurial-freedom/2014/11/13/a0a852e6-6aaf-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html
