The Senate was scheduled to vote after our deadline Friday...

and Max Baucus, D-Mont., submitted secondary amendments to Durbin’s amendment to the Senate’s budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 8). Enzi said he was “absolutely” hopeful the amendment would pass, in an interview prior to the budget amendment vote Friday. If the amendment passed he said the next steps would be to “get the markup that Baucus kind of promised yesterday and get it finished.” Enzi acknowledged the continued opposition to the bill from members of his own party: “There are a number of people what are in opposition. Most of them come from states that don’t have a sales tax, so they really don’t have a dog in the fight.” As for the persistent opposition from Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform, Enzi said he thought a compromise could be reached. “Grover said that if we put something in where taxes in the state would be reduced in proportion to the sales taxes that come in, he'd be in favor of it. States can do that. This is a states’ rights issue. This won’t impose a tax until states take some action. In the Quill case the Supreme Court said that without a nexus they couldn’t do it but it was something that Congress could fix. So they challenged us 20 years ago to fix it and we are just getting around to fixing it. And part of it is because the Internet used to be an infant tool. It isn’t an infant tool anymore and it is causing [a] $23 billion [tax revenue] drain in states. A lot of states are talking about reducing the property tax by the amount that they get on this. It is not a tax increase at any rate because it is already required. There just isn’t the collection source for it. Now everybody is supposed to report their own online [purchases] and pay their state for the sales tax. It’s kind of hard to keep track of.”