Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist appeared today on Fox Business Network’s Varney & Co. to discuss the Marketplace “Fairness” Act.

Excerpts are below:

“Do you really believe there is a limit to the amount of abuse an Alabama tax collector can hurl on a New York or California or Maine business?”

“There are tremendous abuses that would flow from politicians taxing businesses that can't even vote against them.  That’s why the politicians at the state level love this! It’s ‘free money!’ they think.  But by opening it up, the voters in their states will get mugged by 49 tax collectors in the other states.”

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“This is all about raising money to pay unionized state and local government workers more money and more pensions because they don't think making $20,000 more than people in the private sector is enough, having gold-plated pensions is not enough.  They want more. They think this is the only way they can get certain states to raise money for them.”

“We need to first put into any bill that is being discussed a prohibition on having this process extended to income taxes and corporate income taxes.  Because what the union bosses want is not the sales taxes, there is no money there.  They maybe think, you know, $8 billion they could raise in a year off Internet sales taxes, that doesn’t get them through the week, okay.  What they want is to tax Exxon’s worldwide earnings out of Mississippi, out of North Dakota.  This is to extend corporate income taxes.”

“Loser states — Illinois and California — that are losing people are trying to figure out how to tax people that are leaving.”