Posted on 06/30/2004 5:04:30 AM PDT by LurkedLongEnough
Back in 1996, Vice President Gore had a noble idea. It was to wire every American classroom to the World Wide Web. The idea came to fruition when the E-rate program was born. Often called the "Gore tax," about one-third of the 8% "universal service fee" that's levied on every American long-distance bill has been dedicated to connecting all U.S. schools to the information superhighway.
At a cost of $2.25 billion per year, this program is credited with hooking up more than 90% of the nation's classrooms. Unfortunately, a recently uncovered trail of waste, fraud, and abuse demonstrates that some of the country's biggest technology companies are taking the federal government for a very expensive ride.
As with so many other new federal programs that begin with good intentions, the E-rate program's lack of oversight and poor program guidelines turned it into easy prey for those looking to gorge like a pack of pigs at the federal trough. Internal and external audits of the program have found substantial problems with more than a third of the beneficiaries' management of program funds. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has recently reported 42 criminal investigations in connection with the E-rate program.
An investigation in Puerto Rico uncovered millions of dollars of top-of-the-line tech gear languishing in a warehouse several years after it was purchased. The school district has spent more than $100 million in an effort to connect all public schools on the island to the Internet, but succeeded in hooking up only 9 of their 1,500 schools.
The Atlanta Public School system built a $73 million technology infrastructure that offers "gigabit ethernet" speed and would make many Fortune 500 companies salivate. An Atlanta Journal Constitution investigation discovered invoices for equipment that was not needed, or in some cases never delivered. Atlanta Public Schools are now trying to get E-rate to cover the $14 million annual cost of running their network.
In New York City, an Internet service provider persuaded poor schools to buy unnecessarily expensive equipment and asked them to prepare fake invoices.
School administrators in Virginia fraudulently used E-rate money to buy themselves pagers and cell phones.
The E-rate program is a prime example of what happens when the federal government hands out "free money." Federal programs that don't require recipients to share a significant percentage of the costs, have limited guidelines on how the money can be spent, and perform little oversight, are almost guaranteed to be taken advantage of. In light of the recent exposure of E-rate's waste, fraud and abuse, Congress is now -- eight years late -- pressing for more oversight of the program.
Everyone agrees that public schools should have the benefit of access to the information superhighway. However, to nip this waste problem in the bud, Congress should suspend E-rate program until the FCC can guarantee competitive bidding, annual audits and tougher penalties for abuse. The FCC also should create a uniform standard for bringing every school district online instead of leaving thousands of individual school systems prey to the pigs who want to gorge themselves on the federal taxpayers' dime.
People should refuse to pay this portion of their bill, and send a letter to their congress-critter and senators to tell them to kill this tax, which is nothing more than another pork barrel in disguise.
Maybe I'll pick up a copy of that rag today. I want to see how they will blame this on Bush.
I get so angry when I review my phone bills. I rarely use the phone and the taxes end up costing me more than the service.
Uh, want to get a little angrier?
There is an excise tax on everyones phone bill that was originally enacted to fund ....
(drum roll) .... are you ready.... better sit down now;
It was enacted in 1898 and is STILL there today.
I tried that and evidently there is a State Law in Michigan that requires LD service be available on all phones. I questioned that statement by the phone co. and found it to be consistent with information I found on the web. I would cancel my phone completely except I like to order pizza every now and then and I call a local friend a couple of times a month.
I don't want the ball and chain a cell creates......
OMG, thanks for the blood pressure jolt! More proof that once a tax or fee is passed, it will never go away!
I agree about the cell, wouldn't have one in my house.
That is too bad about LD required.
one-third of the 8% "universal service fee"
let me guess ... 2/3 goes into the coffers of gore and the dnc? or whose?
Looks like a good article to send Mark Carpenter over at CAGW.
Just curious, does this "fee" apply when one is using a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) service like Vonage? There have been rumblings in numerous areas requiring "regulation" of these services, but don't know if it counts as "long distance service".
I'm the opposite, I'm trying to live without a phone line, just a cell phone.
With cell phone number portability, the many "anytime" minute plans, it looks like I'll be able to keep the same number for a long time without having to live in the same place.
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