Another point of view
Ken Sutton (kensut@crlc.org)
Fri, 5 Dec 1997 09:37:00 -0500
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 09:37:00 -0500
Message-Id: <v03110702b0adbeb3b321@[209.66.136.44]>
From: Ken Sutton <kensut@crlc.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <conntech>
Subject: Another point of view
<fontfamily><param>Times</param>A New Tax for the New Year
By James K. Glassman
The Washington Post Tuesday, December 2, 1997; Page A27
An unpleasant surprise awaits you when the new year begins: Your phone
bill will be increased to cover the cost of vast new government
programs that you probably know nothing about and that Congress never
thought would be so huge.
These new charges amount to a tax -- a stiff one. What's remarkable is
that it wasn't set by Congress but by the Federal Communications
Commission, acting on the advice of an unelected board.
The legislative and executive branches have not only granted a new
entitlement but have turned their taxing authority over to other,
unaccountable people.
Some members of Congress are beginning to understand the implications
of what they've done. Particularly exercised is Rep. Tom Bliley
(R-Va.), the Commerce Committee chairman, who recently sent a letter to
the FCC's new chairman, William Kennard, demanding to know, among other
things, "whether rate increases are likely" for phone customers.
They sure are -- perhaps to the tune of 4 or 5 percent. No one knows
precisely since the amount depends, not on strict legal requirements,
but instead on the judgment of a bunch of Washington lawyers who may
have a political agenda in mind -- for example, electing Al Gore
president.
The new tax will pay for a program the FCC calls "universal service."
It's been around for decades, but on a smaller scale -- mainly for
phone subsidies in rural areas.
Should inner-city dwellers foot the bills of people who choose to live
in the glorious wide-open spaces of Wyoming? Of course not. But
senators like Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Jay
Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) have managed through the years to bring home the
telephonic bacon -- mainly because most Americans elsewhere haven't a
clue that they're supporting their country cousins this way.
Starting in January, the old universal service programs are being
expanded, from $1.9 billion to $2.2 billion annually -- and later that
figure will rise even more.
More important, however, is that universal service will now include the
cost of wiring the nation's 2 million classrooms and 16,000 libraries
to the Internet -- an incredible $2.25 billion annually for another
four years at least. Add in another $400 million a year to wire rural
health centers, and the grand total in 1998 will come to $4.9 billion,
or an average of about $50 a year for every U.S. household.
The Internet is wonderful, no doubt. But should it be such a high
priority at a time when most students can barely read the volumes of
Mark Twain and Shakespeare already in the school library?
=20
"Not many things make me angrier," David Gelernter, professor of
computer science at Yale, told me, "than this outrageous power grab by
the cultural elite, which is too lazy to understand computers and
instead chooses to propitiate the technology gods by feeding them our
money.
"Children need Internet access the way they need subsidized bus service
to the nearest mall."
What is the federal government doing in this business, anyway?
Education is the ultimate local issue. If states want to spend money on
Internet hook-ups, let them use their own tax dollars. Most, in fact,
already have: In 1996, two-thirds of public schools had Internet
access.
Ira Fishman, on the other hand, thinks there's a key federal role. He's
the former White House and FCC counsel who is now paid $200,000 a year
as CEO of the Schools and Libraries Corp., one of three (count 'em,
three) separate nonprofits created to run universal service programs at
an annual administrative budget of more than $25 million a year. "We're
busting our tails to get this going" by Jan. 1, he says.=20
The Internet-in-the-schools idea was hatched by Vice President Gore and
his friend Reed Hundt, the recently departed FCC chairman. They
consistently tout the benefits of the program, but not its costs.
It's no surprise, then, that the FCC is angry at companies that plan to
disclose those costs to customers as a line item on the monthly bill.
"They don't want us to call it a tax," says Randall Coleman of the
Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. "But that's what it
is."
Absolutely. A few months ago, Hundt admitted as much to me in an
interview on the PBS show "TechnoPolitics." I asked him why Internet
link-ups -- if they were such good public policy -- shouldn't be funded
with general tax revenues like any other domestic program?
"Probably the most equitable way that you could raise money for a
national purpose," said Hunt, "would be through contributions by the
telecommunications companies, because they cover the whole country."
In other words, for Hundt, it's perfectly reasonable for phone bills to
become 1040 forms. The only problem is that no one elected Hundt or
Kennard or Fishman tax collector.
Still, the FCC now has the power, thanks to the vague language of the
1996 telecommunications act, to impose whatever taxes it wants. "There
doesn't seem to be a limit," says Coleman. Why stop at $4.9 billion a
year? Why not $20 billion?
Now even rural senators are getting worried about the monster they've
created. "Nobody in Congress realized the program would be quite so
large and expansive," says Earl Comstock, an aide to Stevens. So rural
senators are putting pressure on long-distance companies to keep the
universal-service line item off their bills.
The idea here is an old one: People can't rebel if they're kept in the
dark. That's exactly where the FCC, Gore, Stevens and the rest are
trying to keep them. But a little light is shining in.
The writer is a fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute.
=A9 Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company
</fontfamily>
Kenneth Sutton
Office Manager & Technology Coordiantor
Capitol Region Library Council
599 Matianuck Avenue
Windsor CT 06095
Voice: 860-298-5319 ext 3001
=46AX: 860-298-5328