Today's news brings word of a proposed tax increase that president Obama wants to impose on cell phone users. The proceeds of the tax will be used to fund high speed internet connections for the nation's public schools. The most amazing thing, however, is that Obama wants the FCC just to add the tax as a "fee" to all cellphone bills. Obama has no intention of having Congress pass the tax into law. This will be yet another unconstitutional power grab by Obama.
Think about the implications of this move.
1. The Constitution reserves to Congress the right to raise taxes. The president cannot do it on his own. Indeed, under the Constitution, tax increases have to originate in the House; even the Senate cannot begin such legislation, since the framers wanted to make sure that the body closest to the people determines tax policy. Remember: "No taxation without representation!" Obama's move would destroy the constitutional structure, and it would be illegal.
2. Schools are local matters. They are not the business of the federal government for the most part. According to the government, half of the schools around the country already have the high speed internet connections that Obama wants to increase. In other words, about half of the nation has already ponied up the cash to pay for these connections. Now, Obama is asking the people in these districts to pay again, this time for the districts that did not yet set up these connections.
3. The cost for a high speed internet connection is not great for most urban or suburban school districts. In most places, there is a local cable TV provider that can hook up the school and bring in a high speed cable modem for well less than $1000 per year. Do we really need the federal government to get involved in a local matter that small? Have we not yet realized that a national one size fits all education policy causes more problems than it solves?
One final note: I have no doubt that it is a good goal to get every public school a high speed internet attachment. That, however, is not the issue. America has a Constitution for a reason, and that reason is not so that Obama has something to ignore. Obama's lawlessness has to stop!
Think about the implications of this move.
1. The Constitution reserves to Congress the right to raise taxes. The president cannot do it on his own. Indeed, under the Constitution, tax increases have to originate in the House; even the Senate cannot begin such legislation, since the framers wanted to make sure that the body closest to the people determines tax policy. Remember: "No taxation without representation!" Obama's move would destroy the constitutional structure, and it would be illegal.
2. Schools are local matters. They are not the business of the federal government for the most part. According to the government, half of the schools around the country already have the high speed internet connections that Obama wants to increase. In other words, about half of the nation has already ponied up the cash to pay for these connections. Now, Obama is asking the people in these districts to pay again, this time for the districts that did not yet set up these connections.
3. The cost for a high speed internet connection is not great for most urban or suburban school districts. In most places, there is a local cable TV provider that can hook up the school and bring in a high speed cable modem for well less than $1000 per year. Do we really need the federal government to get involved in a local matter that small? Have we not yet realized that a national one size fits all education policy causes more problems than it solves?
One final note: I have no doubt that it is a good goal to get every public school a high speed internet attachment. That, however, is not the issue. America has a Constitution for a reason, and that reason is not so that Obama has something to ignore. Obama's lawlessness has to stop!
2 comments:
A couple of comments:
1) There is already a fee being collected by the FCC for precisely this stated purpose. Obama simply wants to increase the fee.
2)The FCC is supposed to be an independent commission, so Obama theoretically cannot unilaterally raise this fee. I conclude he simply wants to take credit for his generosity and foresight. Unfortunately, the FCC currently has a Democrat majority, so even though he cannot "direct" them to take this action, it probably will happen.
3) This is precisely the method used by totalitarian governments to raise ever-increasing huge amounts of money. Just put a small fee on an item which exists in very large numbers ( I think there are approximately 300 million cellphones in the U.S.), is increasing rapidly and is a virtually mandatory commodity.
I believe this fee addition is supposed to be in the range of $4-$5 annually. Maybe not all cellphones will be charged but surely the additional total is possibly one billion $ or more and will increase with every additional cellphone forever.
4) I expect the next FCC imposed charge to be based not just on existence of a phone but on usage. In fact, maybe there already is such a charge but I am just not aware of it.
Don Giles
To Don Giles:
The FCC fee of which you speak was authorized by act of Congress. There is no question that the FCC could take Obama's direction and "raise" the fee. The problem is that this would subvert the original law passed by Congress that had a particular fee in mind.
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