$50 Billion Down Bell Rathole

I know that in this Second Gilded Age, $50 billion may not sound like a lot of money.

But that is apparently what the Bells have squandered in Universal Service Fund payments over the last two decades.

And the Stevens bill now making its way through the Senate would increase these taxes.

You might call Stevens' plan an Ultra-Slim Fast Plan for the U.S. economy, as in Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire.

As Daniel Berninger wrote recently, what's preventing universal service isn't a lack of money, but a lack of competition. When you have a Mexican Plan for telecommunications, you're enriching the few and impoverishing everyone else.

This has to change if we're to make progress.

The right plan is very simple:

• End the USF tax.
• End the Bells' monopoly.
• Ensure competition for broadband at ever-higher speeds.

And since it's now certain the Republican Congress is going in the opposite direction on this, anyone who believes in the Internet needs to vote Democratic.