"I think it's worth looking at some very, very small charge for every e-mail sent, so small that it would not be onerous for an individual or business that has regular (e-mail) use, but it would be a deterrent for those who are sending millions and even billions of these e-mails," said Senator Mark Dayton (D-Minnesota).
Full Story here

[BEGIN RANT]
The _only_ talent the majority of elected officials have is that of wringing yet more money out of us poor saps.......

Let's think about this for a second..... Who is going to collect the cash? How are they going to do it? If the IRS collects then they need to know what to collect..... So now every ISP has to collect totals data for every user and pass the users SSN to the IRS with a total for the email they sent...... Hrrrrumph...... I an not prepared to give my SSN to Hotmail!!!!! Then there is the cost of doing this incurred by the ISP...... They won't be eating it, so they will put up their prices..... So now Joe Schmoe is double "taxed"..... Once for sending an email and once for paying the ISP to help tax him......... Screw that!!!!!

Next point..... I have my own mailserver in my house..... Am I going to send the IRS the information they need..... Am I Hell!!!!!!!!!!!

Next point....... Who gets charged for the hijacked mailservers these people will start using, (and already do)?????? If my mailserver gets hijacked and they send a million emails out at 1c per email do I get billed $100,000...... I'd better bloody well not........ 'cos they'll be collecting over my dead body......

All these morons in government should stick to contemplating their belly-buttons and butt the hell outta technical matters that none of them have the intellect to comprehend!!!!!!
[END RANT.... THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME]