Posted on 06/18/2015 9:55:35 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Today the FCC voted in favor of updating its Lifeline program to include broadband. This would mean that households surviving on low incomes would be able to receive help paying for a broadband connection. It might not be as important as electricity or water, but having a broadband connection is seen as being all but essential these days.
From helping with education and job hunting, to allowing for home working, the ability to get online is seen as so vital by some that there have been calls for it to be classed as a utility. The Lifeline program has been running since the 80s, and originally provided financial help to those struggling to pay for a phone line. It was expanded in 2008 to include wireless providers, and it is hoped that this third expansion will help more people to get online.
Announcing the decision to modernize the program, the FCC points out that less than half (48 percent) of households with an income under $25,000 had an internet connection at home. While it could be argued that internet access is possible through smartphones, the commission reveals that half of low income consumers have their mobile connections suspended or cancelled due to financial difficulties.
Broadband has become essential to participation in modern society, offering access to jobs, education, health care, government services and opportunity. Unfortunately, income remains a significant barrier to broadband adoption.
The broadband subsidy would remain at $9.25 and there are plans to "reduce waste, fraud and abuse". A third party would be used to verify the eligibility of households, and it would be required to retain documentation to allow for easier auditing. This would help to take pressure off ISPs, something that could be improved further by the use of subsidies being delivered directly to customers through the use of vouchers.
The Fascism is here. :)
I didn’t realize that they had that constitutional power.
good now poor americans can watch porn on the taxpayers dime.../s
I guess I’m in a super minority nowadays. Were I to have a household incoming of 25k or less, a smart phone, internet access - hell, a land-line phone, would be the *last* things on my mind.
How about food, rent, water, lights, and FINDING A BETTER JOB.
Yes, yes, I know.
That means they will also get a free ObamaComputer, otherwise how will they connect.
I already pay taxes for the local library to have it available to everyone who needs it.
When I was a supervisor at a Dallas area unemployment office we were giving away nice laptops with complete software and one year of free Internet access to welfare recipients. That was almost 10 years ago.
So much for the division of powers.
How does a government pay for all these social engineering projects? Through fiat, printed money and massive debt.
This and 1000 other nanny-state schemes could not exist if the USA had a “hard’ currency.
Not to mention coffee shops, McDonalds, Target, Fred Meyer, etc. Not paid for with taxes, I know, but all “free”.
Glad I’m not paying for that.
I assume this will be subsidized by a “lifeline” fee on current users.
It all comes from the same pot - the USF.
That “pot” was worth billions until GWBush allowed cell phones. It immediately went into the red.
Who pays into the pot ? Anybody with a phone line that’s not subsidized.
Based on the rewrite that now considers broadband as a utility, I’m guessing some sort of tax will be put on Internet service that will go into the USF pot.
Silly peasant!
Mussolini defined Fascism as the state taking over businesses that didn’t serve their customers.
The FCC stole broadband and is now forcing those companies to serve their customers “better”.
The Fascism is here and it’s called “consumer protection”.
I looked over my phone bill this month. I paid thirteen dollars in taxes alone.
Over half of that goes to the Obamaphone/Obamanet slush funds.
Obamaphone has now morphed into Obamanet, despite the FCC not having jurisdiction.
Let the scams begin.
As FReepers read this post, please bear in mind that the FCC’s constitutionally indefensible actions are a consequence of the ill-conceived 17th Amendment (17A) imo. More about 17A shortly.
Regarding FCC subsidized broadband connections, not only have the states never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to tax and spend for such a purpose, but consider the following.
The Founding States had made the first numbered clauses in the Constitution, Sections 1-3 of Article I, to clarify that all federal legislative / regulatory powers are vested in the elected members of Congress, not in the executive or judicial branches, or in non-elected bureaucrats like those running the FCC and the EPA. So Congress has a constitutional monopoly on federal legislative / regulatory powers whether it wants it or not imo.
And by delegating such powers to non-elected bureaucrats —powers that Congress doesn’t have — corrupt Congress is wrongly protecting such powers from the wrath of the voters in blatant defiance of Sections 1-3 mentioned above imo.
Getting back to 17A, the basic reason that the FCC is getting away with buying votes for Democrats by subsidizing broadband connections is this imo. Corrupt senators did not do their job to protect their states by killing the constitutionally indefensible House appropriations bill(s) (1.7.1) which helped to establish such funds.
In fact, the Senate wrongly ignored its option to lead Congress to propose an appropriate amendment to the Constitution to the states (Article V) to properly establish this broadband connections project within the framework of the Constitution. And if the states had chosen to ratify the amendment then Congress, not the FCC, would have had the constitutional authority to vote to subsidize Internet broadband connections to win votes for Democrats.
The 17th Amendment needs to disappear, and a bunch of corrupt senators and Constitution-ignoring federal bureaucrats along with it.
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