Topic: Obama Pushes Cell Phone Rate Hike, without Congress

[Pandora]

The president is pushing a plan to raise money by hiking cell phone fees and use the revenue generated to wire up local schools with high-speed Internet access.

The idea of allowing states and towns to figure out how to pay for their own Internet access is evidently anathema to this administration, as is the idea that government should stay within its constitutional boundaries.

He’s also planning to do this without input from Congress, via the Federal Communications Commission, according to the Washington Post. Congress, not the executive branch, is empowered by the Constitution with the ability to levy or reject taxes.

By circumventing Congress, the president would also avoid hearings, debate, and give and take — what we used to call the legislative process. Now it’s just the government and its functionaries blackmailing the citizenry.

Cell phone users already pay for another massive Obama social program, the so-called Obamaphones. That free cell phone program, which began as a modest program in the Reagan era to help poor and rural families get telephones, exploded from 2009 to 2012 — there were one million of them in use in swing state Ohio in 2012. There is little if any oversight to prevent fraud.

This new program, called ConnectEd, will be added on top of the Obamaphone bill.

    In the case of ConnectEd, White House officials worried that Obama could be accused of raising taxes on all Americans who use phone or Internet service, amid a broader debate in which Republicans are saying he is trying to raise taxes on the middle class. The cost for the initiative is estimated at $4 billion to $6 billion, and the administration said it could work out to about $12 in fees for every cellphone user over three years.

    A senior administration official said that if the idea had come up during the presidential campaign, it probably would have been abandoned because of the political risk. Democrats faced withering critiques in the 1990s for advocating gas taxes to fund roads and bridges, and then-Vice President Al Gore was put on the defensive over the “Gore tax,” the 1996 law that gave the FCC the power to charge such fees.

[IronDioPriest]

Every day.

[Pandora]

Every day.

Yes.  Every damn day ......

He's like the friggin Terminator.

[LadyVirginia]

I stared at the screen for a long time unsure as to what to say.

I still don't know.

It's one of those days.

[Glock32]

One of the points of contention during the Constitutional Convention was the role of the Federal executive. You had some who basically wanted a king-like executive (even calling him King) and you had others who basically didn't want an executive at all. The general consensus was that the executive power needed to culminate in one single person, and that single person would be held in check by the separation of powers.

I think we can plainly see now that the faction of Framers who were highly suspicious of executive authority were right to be so suspicious.  I think the Constitutional role of the President is pretty well designed and strikes a balance between the committee mentality of the legislative branch and the need to have an executive capable of being decisive (and hence also responsible). But like so much in the Federal government, the Constitutional parameters have been out the window for some time now.

In my fantasies about the restoration of this Republic, I include measures to greatly check the executive branch. It has become an absolute monster, capable of micromanaging the lives of individual citizens in ways the British Crown could never have imagined. We are seriously watching a Caesar transform a republic into an imperial state. He didn't start the corruption, but he has taken the torch and run with it like none before him.

[Pandora]

It is my belief that if the Senators were still representing their States, instead of their pocketbooks, positions and their parties, this tinpot dictator in particular (and probably more of them generally) would already have been reined in.

ETA nonsequitur: (wtf!  the spellcheck doesn't recognize "nonsequitur"?!)  The ink on the NC Voter ID was not even dry when that bitch, Hagan, wrote the DOJ demanding action against it.  Now, just who the hell does she represent?  Not NC, that's for sure.

[warpmine]

One of the points of contention during the Constitutional Convention was the role of the Federal executive. You had some who basically wanted a king-like executive (even calling him King) and you had others who basically didn't want an executive at all. The general consensus was that the executive power needed to culminate in one single person, and that single person would be held in check by the separation of powers.

I think we can plainly see now that the faction of Framers who were highly suspicious of executive authority were right to be so suspicious.  I think the Constitutional role of the President is pretty well designed and strikes a balance between the committee mentality of the legislative branch and the need to have an executive capable of being decisive (and hence also responsible). But like so much in the Federal government, the Constitutional parameters have been out the window for some time now.

In my fantasies about the restoration of this Republic, I include measures to greatly check the executive branch. It has become an absolute monster, capable of micromanaging the lives of individual citizens in ways the British Crown could never have imagined. We are seriously watching a Caesar transform a republic into an imperial state. He didn't start the corruption, but he has taken the torch and run with it like none before him.

Would have worked just fine if the legislators(Congress) were not a select group of f**king cowards. May they all drown in their urine and choke on their feces, constitutional conservatives excluded, of course.

[warpmine]

It is my belief that if the Senators were still representing their States, instead of their pocketbooks, positions and their parties, this tinpot dictator in particular (and probably more of them generally) would already have been reined in.

ETA nonsequitur: (wtf!  the spellcheck doesn't recognize "nonsequitur"?!)  The ink on the NC Voter ID was not even dry when that bitch, Hagan, wrote the DOJ demanding action against it.  Now, just who the hell does she represent?  Not NC, that's for sure.

Mail the whore a bullet and put someone else' name to it.

[Glock32]

Their profound hostility to efforts at protecting the validity of voting says all you need to know about them. They have been engaged in systemic voter fraud for at least the past several elections. I mean, finding bags of ballots at the last minute, precincts casting more votes than there are registered voters, it's rampant.

Every bit of this early voting and especially same day registration needs to end immediately. It is tailor made for fraud. The 17th amendment does need to be repealed. The whole idea of a bicameral legislature was that the House is "the people's House", directly elected by the people, and the Senate represents the states themselves.

[Libertas]

It won't happen peacefully either...not with democrats getting away with all of it and Pubbies acting like all is well...

[Glock32]

It won't happen peacefully either...not with democrats getting away with all of it and Pubbies acting like all is well...

Almost every day I waver on whether the Republicans' ineptness is deliberate or merely the result of profound stupidity. Ultimately of course it doesn't matter, the result is the same. But I just have to wonder what possible excuse for logic is going on in their heads when they say they can't get out in front and on the attack with issues like amnesty and voter fraud. "We can't come out too strongly on these points or the media will portray us as racists and we'll suffer politically".  Yeah, as opposed to what exactly? Letting hordes of new Democrats come into the country every year; letting hordes of phantom voters cast votes for Democrats? And that's somehow not going to cause them to suffer politically?


Morons. I've got morons on my team

[Libertas]

Yup.  They'll be no talikin' or excusin' their way outta responsibility when it all goes sideways...they should man-up and face their punishment.  And believe me, there will be punishment.