San Francisco - President Bill Clinton today re-affirmed his support for a moratorium on Internet taxes, but said states should eventually be allowed to tax online transactions.
In a 30-minute address to a largely friendly audience at a financial investors conference, Clinton also pledged to put more federal documents online and to continue construction of a next-generation Internet.
Speaking at the annual BancAmerica Robertson Stephens Tech conference, Clinton plugged the Internet Tax Freedom Act, sponsored by Representatives Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Chris Cox (R-California), which imposes a five-year moratorium on taxing sales made online.
However, he cautioned that state and local governments need a cut of the digital sales occurring on their turf, or the lost revenue could hurt community services that rely on tax revenues, and diminish what he called the strongest economy in decades.
"There should be no unfair breaks for the Internet, but we also should not let it drag down the prosperity we enjoy," Clinton told a crowd of approximately 600 attendees.
Clinton also announced a $23 million initiative, part of the White House Millennium project, to put national resources online.
Those include reproduction of three million objects and documents in the Smithsonian Institution and the National Archives.
He also noted that National Science Foundation grants had just added 29 universities, for a total of 92, to the Internet 2 project.
Clinton flattered his audience as entrepreneurs who are the spiritual descendents of the country's founders, "people who came here believing that a free people would almost always get it right."
