“The Senate is actually going to vote for a bill.”

The title of this post is a quote from Senator Durban, joking today that C-Span watchers were going to see something "historic" and "precedent-setting" in the easy passage of a bipartisan bill to tax online retailers. According to this New York Times article, the Republicans were split on the Internet sales tax bill, also called the Marketplace Fairness Act, with antitax group against it and Republicans prioritizing "Main Street businesses" in favor of the bill's passage. Since bipartisan legislation is becoming rarer and rarer, as per our class discussion today, we should note such accomplishments when they occur. It will be interesting to see what happens to this bill in the House. I also thought it was notable given our simulation strategies that the New York Times reported: "Its sponsors intentionally kept the bill simple — just 11 pages in length — to ease passage."