Put on your shocked faces: It looks like President Obama wants to pay for another massive federal spending program by performing an end-run around Congress.
Via the Taxpayers Protection Alliance:
The hot summer in DC is coming to a close, but the action in Congress will soon heat up as lawmakers will return in less than a month and with issues ranging from the budget, to Obamacare there’s plenty on the agenda. The President, in a pattern we have seen again and again, has decided to attempt to bypass Capitol Hill again as he seeks a new goal of providing high-speed Internet for nearly all schools across the country over the next five years through his ConnectEd program. According to The Washington Post, this is “an ambitious plan to expand high-speed Internet access in schools that would allow students to use digital notebooks and teachers to customize lessons like never before.”
The plan is ambitious and down right sneaky because President Obama wants to circumvent congressional approval for the new tax and pass the tax directly through the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). The cost of this program is estimated at upwards of $6 billion dollars and the mechanism used to pay for it: raising fees of mobile phone users. The FCC is supposed to be an ‘independent’ agency, but is stacked with Obama appointees including incoming Chairman Tom Wheeler. Wireless users already pay an average of 17 percent in taxes for their wireless (see study here).
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Wake up, cell phone users.
FCC to drive up your mobile taxes.They increased 3x faster than tax on taxable goods/services http://t.co/ZG17Ni3Lxv #wireless @CTIA @FCC
— Bartlett Cleland (@MaderyBridge) August 19, 2013
Lay off our phone bills, Obama – they're already taxed 17.2 percent http://t.co/JGwit0L51F via @DigitalTrends #Tax #Celluar
— Morris Massre – משה (@shoelessmoe) August 17, 2013
Yep. Dispense with the “fee” euphemisms and call it what it is:
a new USA #internet #wireless tax http://t.co/ZVJzxdfmJx
— Rich Morgan (@TrueRichMorgan) August 18, 2013
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