Hang Up on the Gore Phone Tax
Vice President Al Gore has staked his political reputation on allying himself with radical environmentalism and government manipulation of the Internet. His schemes usually involve higher and hidden taxes, oppressive federal or even global regulations, and payoffs to political pals.
The Gore phone tax involves all these elements and burdens everyone who uses a telephone. There are no exemptions, no deductions, no credits, no cap or floor, no way to escape the obnoxious Gore phone tax that is added to everyone's monthly long-distance phone bill. Of course, your phone bill must be paid monthly or your service is cut off, an even more effective technique than demands from the IRS.
The proper name for the Gore phone tax is the "E-rate" for education rate. It came out of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which requires telecommunications companies to provide the lowest possible rates to schools and libraries, and to subsidize their installation of Internet connections and telecommunications services. It's been dubbed the Gore tax because the Vice President is a chief proponent of this telephone tax.
The Gore phone tax was initially planned to be levied secretly so that the public wouldn't be aware of paying it, and the FCC pressured phone companies not to disclose the tax to their customers. But competition for phone rates has gotten so intense that the phone companies are refusing to take the hit of raising their rates without identifying the federal mandate that forced the increase. AT&T has added a 93-cent charge to every residential monthly phone bill, while other long-distance carriers have added a 5 percent charge.
The Gore tax is being challenged both in court and in Congress on the constitutional ground that the FCC has no authority to impose a tax, the taxing power being in the exclusive domain of Congress. Supporters of the tax say, "no problem; just call it a fee."
This Gore tax on every phone customer has already started producing a billion dollars in new federal tax receipts. The public school administrators and consultants know a cash cow when they see one. They are now engaged in a grant-writing frenzy and have already submitted 30,000 grant applications requesting more than $2 billion, much of it for school services only distantly related to Internet connections. Most schools are already Internet connected anyway.
Reacting to political pressure, the FCC reduced the 18-month budget for the Internet program from $3.35 billion to $1.9 billion. Schools have not received any money yet. This tax-and-spend boondoggle was slated to pay a salary of $200,000 to a Gore fundraiser, Ira Fishman. Congress reacted to this revelation by reducing his tax-paid salary to "only" $151,000, and Fishman subsequently resigned, citing "personal reasons."
When the government imposes more taxes, the public loses at both ends. It costs our hard-earned money when the tax is collected, and it does all kinds of mischief when the bureaucrats spend it. Letting the feds finance the Internet connection to all public schools is an efficient means of controlling the curriculum, a major objective of the Clinton-Gore Administration. Of course, none of these new tax revenues will go to teach schoolchildren the basics. Students are not going to learn reading, writing and arithmetic by surfing the Internet.
Ever since the landslide repudiation of Big Government in 1994, politicians have been afraid to raise taxes again. The Gore tax (like the tobacco tax) is just another way to raise taxes but call it by another name.
We can also thank Al Gore for the low flush toilets.
How's that for something to be remembered for?
Some years ago (clinton years) I was w/a teacher group touring California schools. One school had 3-4 huge rooms filled w/row on row of computers (must have been 500 computers to the room), and the teacher there told us proudly that they'd gotten them "free" from the federal government.