Leave Our Phones Alone
Fee (USF). This fee is now being challenged in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Earlier this week, CEI, along with the Free State Foundation and several individual scholars, filed an amicus brief arguing that only Congress has the power to lay and to collect such taxes. Congress cannot delegate that power to an agency, because doing so allows it to escape political responsibility for the highly unpopular act of levying taxes. And because Congress did by Kent Lassman, President & CEO, not set out any clear standards for the FCC Competitive Enterprise Institute to follow, it engaged in another unconstimericans love their phones. In fact, tutional act—a “standardless” delegation there are more assigned phone of its legislative power to an agency. The numbers in the United States today Constitution assigns the job of legislating than there are residents. We love the ability to Congress and Congress alone; it cannot to connect with others. In fact, this ability turn around and hand that power off to to communicate from virtually anywhere at some other part of government. Finally, to any time is one of the defining characteris- make these constitutional problems even tics of contemporary life. worse, the FCC has given a private body, the But twenty-five years ago, Congress Universal Service Administrative Company, unconstitutionally handed the Federal the job of administering this fee. Communications Commission (FCC) the Not surprisingly, this lack of accountabilpower to increase taxes on monthly phone ity has resulted in an out of control program. bills, all for the purpose of advancing an The subsidies paid by this program have undefined, amorphous concept of the steadily increased, from $1.4 billion in public interest. The FCC does this through 1996-97 to more than $8.3 billion in 2020-21. something known as the Universal Service This program deserves to be invalidated,
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period. The USF surcharge in 1998 was only three percent. However, it has steadily increased to 33.4 percent, as of the second quarter of 2021 ultimately making internet access more costly for broadband users like you. Since our founding in 1984, CEI has remained focused on the principles of free markets and limited government. We are dedicated to fixing the problems of overregulation, and we’ll continue to fight at both the agency level and in the courts to e nsure that co nsum e r f re e d o m prevails.
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