July 1st, 2008

Barry Aarons in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram: ’Time to Start Hanging Up on Phone Service Program’

Posted in  Tax  Technology 
Author: Erin Humiston || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA

IPI senior fellow Barry Aarons is featured in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram with a new op/ed entitled “Time to Start Hanging Up On Phone Service Program.”

In the piece, Aarons writes:

"Ronald Reagan used to quip that the closest thing to immortality in this life is a government program. And although government provides us with numerous validations of Reagan’s observation, perhaps there’s never been a better example than the Universal Service Fund.

Created in 1934, the UFS was designed to enable national connection of the so-called nationwide wire-line network. And by the 1970s the system worked pretty well, connecting more than 95 percent of America in a switched-access wire-line system of telecommunications.

It did so by taxing all users of telephone service and using those funds to subsidize telephone service in rural areas. But the payments went to the local rural phone companies, not to the telephone customers themselves. ”

To view the full article, please visit the Fort Worth Star-Telegram online