Congress can tax, presidents spend

Published 9:17 pm Tuesday, August 20, 2013

The point isn’t that it’s a very, very small tax. Those add up, and besides, size isn’t an issue for, say, a germ. And the point isn’t that the tax would go to a popular, well-intentioned goal. Good intentions are nice, but results matter.

The point is that President Barack Obama’s plan to increase a tax on cell phones in order to fund high-speed internet in schools is not part of his job. Taxes are supposed to be levied by the legislative branch — Congress — not by the executive branch.

“Unwilling to ask Congress for extra funds to pay for high-speed Internet connections in schools, President Obama is instead looking to tack yet another charge on cellphones through the Federal Communications Commission,” the New York Post reports. “The new program, called ConnectED, would expand an existing school-wiring effort and cost each cell phone user about $5 a year, said White House officials.”

The White House says it’s forced to take the action because Congress won’t act.

“You would think that connecting schools to the information superhighway would be a pretty noncontroversial topic,” a White House spokesman said last week. “Unfortunately, we haven’t seen a lot of action in Congress, so the president has advocated an administrative, unilateral action to get this done.”

The White House adds that the higher tax is “temporary.” But then, that’s what they said about the income tax.

The size of the tax isn’t the issue here. No matter how big or how small, it’s inappropriate. The tax we’re talking about is the Universal Service Fund, a zombie tax that began as a way to ensure rural areas would receive telephone (land-line) service. That was, arguably, a worthy goal; telephones in many cases are lifelines when people need emergency services.

But when that goal was accomplished (and in many cases, achieved by broad cell phone coverage), politicians didn’t end the fund, they repurposed it. In 2011, the FCC decided that rural homes shouldn’t have to face the horrors of dial-up internet service, and started spending the tax revenues on providing high-speed internet service to rural areas.

Now, there s no doubt the Internet is a fine thing. It can be educational and enlightening but let’s be honest, for most use — and we’re including school use here — it’s merely entertaining. More bandwidth is spent on fails, farks, lolcats and chat-trolling than ever is used for research papers.

And faster internet service must not be confused with education reform. Studies show that without proper controls, technology becomes just another distraction for students.

But more to the point, the president’s fondness for going around Congress is both wrong and short-sighted. Democrats are defending his actions now, but they’ll change their minds in a hurry when a Republican president’s agenda is only slowed by a “recalcitrant” Democratic Congress.

Upsetting the balance of powers is tempting, no doubt. This president seems even less concerned with the Constitution’s separations than previous chief executives.

But it’s a balance that must be maintained.

If Congress capitulates on a “little” tax, what will be next?