President Bush: Don’t Tax Broadband Access
Posted on: 04/26/2004
President Bush today reaffirmed a goal to bring
high-speed Internet access to every part of the country by 2007
and reiterated broadband technology should not be taxed.
“Broadband technology must be affordable. In
order to make sure it gets spread to all corners of the country,
it must be affordable. We must not tax broadband access,” Bush
said today during a speech before the American Association of
Community Colleges Annual Convention in Minneapolis, Minn. “If
you want broadband access throughout the society, Congress must
ban taxes on access.”
During a speech last month in Albuquerque, N.M.,
the president said the country must have universal affordable
access to broadband technology by 2007, adding the government
does not need to tax access to broadband service.
The U.S. Senate is considering whether to allow
state and local taxes on Internet access. One bill would
permanently ban taxation of Internet access and services and
expands the definition to include DSL and wireless platforms as
well as cable-modem service, according to the New Millennium
Research Council. Another bill would revive a now-expired
moratorium on state and local taxation of cable-modem service
for two years, the NMRC says, but consumers using DSL or
wireless platforms would have to pay state and local taxes.
During his speech today, the president also
supported the FCC’s decision to deregulate the broadband market,
said the government should make more wireless spectrum available
for free public use, endorsed increased access to federal land
for fiber-optic cables and transmission tower and advocated new
technical standards to make possible new broadband technologies
such as high-speed Internet access over the power lines.
The president supported FCC Chairman Michael
Powell’s decision last year to eliminate regulations on new
broadband networks. The rules free the biggest local phone
companies from having to lease newly constructed networks to
competitors.
“Secondly, a proper role for the government is to
clear regulatory hurdles so those who are going to make
investments do so,” Bush said. “Broadband is going to spread
because it's going to make sense for private sector companies to
spread it so long as the regulatory burden is reduced -- in
other words, so long as policy at the government level
encourages people to invest, not discourages investment.”
The president said the number of broadband
customers has tripled since 2000, yet the U.S. ranks tenth among
industrialized countries in the availability of high-speed
Internet service.
“That's not good enough for America. Tenth is 10
spots too low as far as I'm concerned,” he said.
During his speech, the president did not cite
controversial phone rules that created a rift between fellow
Republicans Powell and FCC commissioner Kevin Martin. A federal
appeals court has overturned the phone rules, but the government
may ask the Supreme Court to review the regulations.
