In 1983, while I was still in Junior High School, the California State Legislature passed into law the “Gwen Moore Telecommunications Act” which, among other things, based on the idea that all people, regardless of their financial means, should have the ability to have basic telephone service, directed the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to create a tax on all phone bills, and the money collected from that tax would then be used to significantly subsidize basic phone service for those who fall below a certain financial income level – this is called the “Lifeline” Program.
As FlashReport readers might suspect, as a conservative columnist, I think that such radical “wealth redistribution schemes” are un-American, and represent yet another example of the expansion of the right to life, liberty and happiness by the political left. Unfortunately, this 1983 law is just one example of thousands of pieces of legislation passed over the years that contribute to California being one of the most expensive places to live and work in our country.
You may wonder why I am bringing up a piece of legislation that is as old as Michael Jackson’s 
Thriller album. I guess the first reason is that it gives me a specific excuse to project public pity on the poor members of the PUC. While they are in tremendously powerful positions as the PUC makes a tremendous amount of regulatory decisions, they are also terribly hamstrung in trying to provide government oversight of the state’s public utilities with more restrictions and directions on them than you can possibly imagine. The second reason is because my curiosity was piqued when I read an item in a recent piece by San Francisco Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius in which he was lamenting that proposed changes in the Lifeline Program by the PUC would result in San Francisco’s poor ultimately finding their phone service costs increasing significantly. As will often happen, I started to “burrow down” to find out more about the Lifeline program, and potential changes being proposed.
**There is more – click the link**
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:00 am
Cell phones tend to cost almost twice what landlines cost. So, if the idea becomes policy, the “lifeline” tax will go up by at least twice.
With landlines, one phone is considered sufficient. However, how long before people are claiming that the taxpayers have an obligation to pay for cell phones for everyone in the “poor” home.
And then there’s data. Data adds at least $20/month to a cell bill. Any reason that people paying their own phone bill isn’t ready to add data to each of the cell phones of “the poor”.
Oh, and certainly “poor” folks ought to have both a cell phone and landline–with Internet access, right?
To the PUC Commissioner who said:
” and we want to serve that
” community.”
It’s time to ask “that community” when they are going to start working like the rest of us, and serving themselves, like we do!
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:00 am
Wow Jon. Let them eat cake!