Word: fcc
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Higher phone bills and overpaid bureaucrats are not easy things for lawmakers to defend in an election year. "We did not vote to have the FCC set up a giant bureaucracy headed by someone paid as much as the President," thunders Democrat John Dingell, ranking minority member of the House Commerce Committee. "The era of Kings in this country ended when we kicked out George...
...blame inevitably finds its way to Gore, whose hand many see in virtually everything the FCC does. Its past chairman, Reed Hundt, goes back so far with Gore that the two of them saw the Beatles' first U.S. concert together. And Gore hand-picked its current chairman, William Kennard. Gore is also closely linked to the inner workings of the industry, where several of his former aides have found lucrative and powerful positions. Complains Louisiana Republican Billy Tauzin, chairman of the House telecommunications subcommittee: "The FCC is an independent regulatory authority, yet we continue to see the Vice President exercising...
...with impressive talent, hiring writers and editors from such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Business Week and TIME (former chief political correspondent Michael Kramer is Brill's No. 2 editor). Washington Post media critic (and author of Spin Cycle) Howard Kurtz will be a contributor, as will former FCC chairman Reed Hundt and humorist Calvin Trillin. Brill has even hired an in-house ombudsman: former New York Times editor Bill Kovach, head of the Nieman journalism fellowships at Harvard, will critique Content's own articles...
...from access fees and other taxes, these IP phone companies are essentially being allowed by the government to steal a slice of the telephone pie without being subject to the same taxes and fees their competitors pay. Beyond giving them a somewhat unfair competitive advantage, this goes against the FCC's long-standing tradition of funding itself and wide-spread telephony access through taxes on long-distance phone service...
...unfair as this may be, the FCC claims it is exempting this new slice of the industry from taxes only long enough for it to get off the ground. Once they start pulling their fair share of the tax burden, though, one can expect IP telephony to become a bit more pricey...