Here they come, folks

One thing you have to say about American politicians is that they are, by and large, predictable.  They will, with rare exceptions, come after the fruit of free enterprise, namely money, every chance they get, because it is with that that they buy power campaign for votes and swing voters their way.

They will also never tell you their root motivation for doing so, since they would tend to be somewhat less effectual in being re-elected should they not appear to have the best interests of their constituencies at heart.

Up to now, the internet has been mostly exempt from taxation.  But its plump, low-hanging fruit has been too much of a temptation to ignore for long.

Enter Alaska Sen. Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens (R-RINO).

Senators back new broadband taxes

At a Tuesday hearing convened by the Senate Commerce Committee, several senators from largely rural states called for expansion of the Universal Service Fund (USF), a multibillion-dollar pool of money that's currently used to subsidize telecommunications services in rural and other high-cost areas, schools and libraries.

Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican who counts himself among the fund's staunch supporters, said Tuesday that "without Universal Service, just having a dial tone would average about $200 per month" for many residents in his home state.

Right now, long-distance, wireless, pay-phone and wireline telephone services are required to contribute a fixed percentage of their revenues to the fund, which they typically do by tacking an additional fee onto their customers' bills.

But supporters of the fund, which gives out on average more than $5 billion each year, say it has dwindled because traditional services, such as long-distance, are taking in less money, while unanticipated voice technologies, such as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), are not expressly required to pay up. (A number of the larger voice over Internet protocol providers, including Vonage, have said they already pay into the fund, but there doesn't appear to be a formal regulation requiring them to do so.)

No formal regulation?  Can't have that, can we?  After all, someone somewhere might not choose to contribute "his fair share."

Let's just cut to the chase here, folks.

One constant feature of taxes in general (and the income tax in particular) is the tendency to concentrate as much revenue generation as possible into as few individuals as possible, thus making it impossible for the people who actually pay the lion's share of taxes to accomplish anything politically, particularly if it has to do with de-hiring the leeches who are bleeding them dry.  This is at the root of all the shrill cries of "TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH!!" whenever the subject comes up.  Face it, folks—since the "rich," however you choose to define them, pay the vast majority of taxes in this country, any tax relief at all will be of some benefit to them, and often is of more benefit to them since, after all, they're paying most of the taxes.  This little fact is conveniently ignored by opponents of tax rate cuts, and maddeningly ignored by proponents (who seem to have no political common sense at all).

In 1997, the top 5% of wage-earners paid the majority—51.9%—of all income taxes.  The bottom half of all taxpayers paid only 4.3 percent of income taxes.  There is nothing in the world fair about that, but it is spun as "fair" since, after all, the "rich" have "more than they need."  Who are you to tell me what I need, Jack?

It's pretty obvious that, in a battle between the people who benefit from taxes and the people who actually pay them, the beneficiaries win—as do the politicians who get to hand out the goodies.  And this fact is hardly lost on our good public servants.

While the income tax is the most obvious example of consolidation of the tax base, it's hardly the only one.  Otherwise taxes would be one of the simplest aspects of US law.  As it is, tax laws are the most complex and arcane in the land.

Of course, this fact is attributed to our good lawmakers' efforts to insure "fairness."

Though all the senators at Tuesday's hearing clearly agreed on the need for USF reform, their priorities differed. For instance, Jim DeMint, a South Carolina senator who has introduced a broadly deregulatory proposal advocated phasing out USF handouts entirely in certain areas where new broadband technology is actually less inexpensive to deploy than its telecommunications predecessors.

"As we look for fairer ways to spread the cost out," he said, "I think we need some ideas on how we can move areas away from subsidization and move into competition."

"Fairer ways to spread the cost out," Jim?  That's the exact opposite of what going on: the consolidation of the cost to a few, mostly politically impotent (due to their reduced numbers) individuals.  And see how he uses words designed to appeal to me, his constituent?  "Moving away from subsidation and moving into competition" is exactly what I support. 

Would that it were exactly what is going to happen.