I had a completely different video prepared for you guys today but then
last night when I should have been in bed and not on Twitter I came across
this gem what ladies and gentlemen this is not a drill California wants to tax
your text messages okay I thought we moved past the days of texting fees what
is this like 2005 the California Public Utilities Commission which I'll be
calling CPUC because it sounds disgusting has released a fifty-two page
proposal to tax all cellphone customers a special California surprise why
because CPUC budget is going up and they can't actually pay for their budget
increases so because they can't balance their checkbook they're going to tax you
well golly that sounds familiar the fact that they can even do this is because of
the Federal Communications Act of 1934 which established Universal service in
order to create widespread and affordable voice service in the United
States it was later amended with Bill Clinton's 1996 Telecommunications Act
which required the FCC to establish support mechanisms to ensure that
schools libraries health care providers and low-income rural insular or
residents in high-cost areas receive access to affordable telecommunication
services now keep in mind in 1996 only about 23% of Americans had access to the
Internet and that access was dial-up
that's clearly different from today when 4G is just about everywhere and even
your local McDonald's has Wi-Fi still see puck says that they need to tax you
to make sure that libraries and poor people can get access to phones in the
internet because that's what this is all about taxing people to help the poor
well now that you mention it what this is really about is that a decline
in telephone calls means that the state has lost out on about five million
dollars over the last six years which leaves the public purpose program
underfunded a program that by the way the proposal itself states is
unsustainable over time and CPUC is right their budget went from 670 million
in 2011 to 998 million last year as in two million short of a billion we could
make billion they've already raised the surcharge rates from 2% to 7% but that
wasn't enough so now it's new tax time but CPUC doesn't want you to see this
new proposal as a tax because we all know from Obamacare's individual mandate
that it wouldn't actually be a tax it would be a fee and according to the fine
print that fee would be retroactive going back five years according to
CPUC the tax - I'm sorry fee - is necessary in order to fund 911
services and subsidized phone services for low-income individuals I'm sorry but
when I worked for a non-profit in a low-income area and our clients needed
new phones we brought them down to Boost Mobile and got them a prepaid phone for
20 bucks but apparently they don't have metro pcs or Boost Mobile in California
and are so bad with their money that if they don't charge you for texting you
don't get to call 9-1-1
Hey socilaists, how you like them apples? how any of this would work what it would
look like and how much they want to tax people is unknown because they refuse to
tell anyone but from personal experience anytime the
government is refusing to tell you something it's because they're being
shady as fuck some groups estimate that the tax would net the state about forty
four point five million dollars a year a lot more than what they claim to be
losing but with that special retroactive clause Californians could be looking at
a bill in the ballpark of about 220 million
CPUC has countered their critics by basically claiming that people already pay extra surcharges so
they'll hardly notice a spokesperson has also said that it wouldn't really affect
consumers because if they start taxing your texts the surcharges on phone calls
would "likely be reduced" but when has the government and especially when has
California ever turned down your money interestingly the opening paragraph of
this garbage heap of a proposal says that its purpose is to increase the
consistency transparency and competitive neutrality of the Commission's surcharge
mechanisms though this is hardly neutral because it doesn't apply to iPhone users
or people that primarily text through internet-based
apps the cellular telecommunications industry association is concerned that
this would just lead people to use competing apps like what's app and
facebook Messenger because they at least understand how markets work but because
iPhone users texting through iMessage wouldn't be affected by this tax it's
likely that no one in the state of California will even care except for
those same subsidized poor people that can't afford iPhones it's a dumb idea
says Jim Wonderman president of the Bay Area council business sponsored advocacy
group trying to tax this very wide population would especially hit young
people and poor people their goal is to make money to help the poor at the same
time it's charging low-income people at least this guy gets it but there is some
hope for you doomed california tax slaves the tax proposal is complicated
by a new FCC ruling that classifies text messages as an information service
because government just can't leave anything alone in this case though
government meddling is at least somewhat helpful as it would technically make the
tax proposal illegal nevertheless CPUC says the proposal is not
inconsistent with federal rules and will be putting it to a vote in January as of
10:00 p.m. Friday night CPUC announced on Twitter that they are
delaying the vote on the text tax due to the FCC ruling but apparently have not
announced this anywhere else that is your Liberty related news for the week
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