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Cable Modem Tax Proposed by FCC
TheSync writes "News.Com has an article by Declan McCullagh that says the FCC is considering a new tax of up to 9.1% on the revenue of cable modem providers. This is an expansion of the existing universal service fund, which currently does not apply to cable services. The USF could even be expanded to wireless IP and VOIP providers as well, expanding the fund to over $13 billion."
Get the fsking snout out of the trough.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Yes, that's right. 55% of this tax will go to school internet connections, library internet access, and low-income subscribers and health care. 45% goes to the somewhat less worthy but still valid rural subscribers to keep costs equitable. Now, what was that you were about to say?
I was about to say that this isn't a socialist state and I don't give a flying hoo-hah if low-income rural subscribers can't get cheap cable.
If there is are going to be government payouts to corporations, cable internet companies seem like very logical recipients. Getting people on the internet will do a lot to drive our economy, definitely in the long run, but probably in the short run as well. Then we could finally catch up with countries like Finland, South Korea and Canada.
For the Bush administration to propose a tax hike on this important technology is yet another piece of evidence that they have shit for brains.
Come on! This is an urban myth. Everybody knows that there is never going to be a tax on your modem. And the President of the United States is George Bush. Read my lips....
Check it out.
Maybe the rural folk should pay extra food taxes to help us city folk pay for food transportation costs. Just because (some) food is grown in the rural areas, does that mean I should pay more for it here in the city?? It's not fair!
cpeterso
Ooooh, look at meeee! I'm abandoning a million years of evolution in favor of a mathematical theory that would never work in the real woooorld! Oooooh! I don't need the help of others, despite all the well-documented evidence to the contraryyy! Lets just exterminate the weaker members of our species and eliminate the buffer zone that keeps us from going extinct when unexpected large-scale disasters occur! Then we'll be able to through the valuable members of our social group at a threat instead of the expendible ones! Fucking ooooh! I'm so fucking sure there's no reason for empathy outside the parent-child relationship, even though it occurs so fucking often! Whoop-de-fucking-oooh.
Anthopological troll #6! Booyah!
Agreed and sending subsidized low-cost food to the cities is ludicrous.
I'm not surprised that you posted such an ignorantly wrong statement anonymously.
There is no subsidised low cost food sent to the cities. The government takes money from the city dwellers and gives it to the rural farmers to throw out the food they grow to keep the prices artificially jacked up.
So this is another in a long list of ways that the urban areas subsidize your lifestyle. So essentially you are on welfare being payed by my dime.
What a delusional rube you are.
the rural special interest has used every trick in the book.
Actually, that's about as accurate as saying the homeless lobby is one of the most powerful in DC. Both (homeless & rural interest) are more appropriately considered as sympathetic targets rather than actual interests.
Posting from flyover country as I speak (80 miles from civilization), there are very few "interests" that embrace folks around here. More accurately, you've got powerful corporate and political entities that use rural as their rallying cry for increased subsidies, income redistribution and other thievery.
RBOCs use it all the time. Large chemical producers (e.g. Monsanto) play their rural pitch (wanna bet the Monsanto CEO doesn't live in a trailer down by the river?). Just like helping the homeless, it's a convenient rallying cry for funds taken from others via taxation.
Really, the only "rural interest" around here is getting the government out of things. Isn't it amusing that we have no shortage of folks who want to help us to our money?
*scoove*