August 19th, 2016 at 2:58 pm
Local Media Attacks N.C. Senator Thom Tillis for Taking Correct Position on Gov’t Broadband
Last week we applauded a federal Court of Appeals ruling upending an Obama FCC campaign to impose government broadband regulations across the country. Specifically, the FCC had attempted to commandeer state authority to govern cities within their own borders by forcing them to allow local governments to foolishly enter the broadband business.
United States Senator Thom Tillis (R – North Carolina) hit the correct note in reaction to the ruling: “Today’s ruling affirms the fact that unelected bureaucrats at the FCC completely overstepped their authority by attempting to deny states like North Carolina from setting their own laws to protect hard-working taxpayers and maintain the fairness of the free market.”
Unwilling to let Sen. Tillis’s good deed go unpunished, however, his hometown newspaper The News & Observer maligned him for taking the correct position. Bizarrely, the paper even admits that local government broadband is a monetary boondoggle whose sustainability requires that funds be diverted from other sources, saying, “They couldn’t price the service at less than it cost to provide it and couldn’t use funds from other sources to subsidize broadband operations.” The editorial also openly advocates treating broadband as a local public “utility” and laments how private enterprises that invest trillions of dollars in broadband infrastructure can continue to do so “without having to worry about towns competing with them.”
Well, duh. In what universe is it a good idea to encourage governments to enter the private market, given their ability to bureaucratically tip the scales in their own favor and kneecap competing private entities? Government at all levels already regulates too much, spends too much and attempts to do too much. The last thing we need is for it to try to commandeer the functioning and innovative private broadband market.
It amounts to a flimsy hit piece from an editorial board that ought to know better. We suspect its readers in North Carolina do.
April 5th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
FCC Commissioner Clyburn Thinks Government Should Enter the Communications Business, Too
In this era of bureaucratic overreach and unsustainable spending and deficits, should government also enter the business of competing against private communications service providers? Doesn’t it already have its hands full?
We at CFIF think so. In fact, we testified last month before the North Carolina legislature on behalf of thousands of supporters and activists across that great state in support of H.B. 129, which would restrain government bureaucrats from unfairly competing against private providers of communications services. And with good reason. From Taiwan to Australia, from Chicago to Houston, and inside North Carolina itself, the history of public broadband is without exception one of failure. Every single public broadband project of which we’re aware has failed to so much as break even. Ultimately, taxpayer bailouts become necessary as government endeavors lose money and require constant upgrades to keep pace with evolving technology. Moreover, government broadband boondoggles undermine the billions of dollars invested in private network improvement and expansion, and discourage future private investment. After all, why risk one’s capital to compete against governments that can manipulate the rules and go to taxpayers for bailout? Inevitably, poorer service and layoffs in the vibrant tech sector result. Rural communities particularly suffer.
But none of that logic seems to matter to Democratic FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. In a statement Monday, Clyburn attacked the North Carolina’s sensible legislation and defended the concept of government entering yet another portion of the private sector. Perhaps that’s not surprising, considering Clyburn’s vote last December to impose so-called “Net Neutrality” in the face of two-to-one public opposition, a unanimous Court of Appeals decision that the FCC didn’t possess such authority and condemnation from bipartisan groups in Congress.
Predictable or not, however, it is critical that Americans at the federal, state and local level vocally oppose the sort of government tech sector overreach that she advocates.
Tags: Big Government, budget, Communications, debt, deficit, Economics, economy, FCC, free market, HB 129, North Carolina, Obama, spending, Stimulus, Telecommunications
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