Bush Seeks More High-Speed Internet
Access, Tax Ban.
President Bush on Monday urged the U.S. Congress
to make Internet access permanently tax free and to reduce
regulations so high-speed access can be universally available by
2007.
Bush complained that the United States was ranked
10th in the deployment of broadband, or high-speed access. To
help boost that rank, he signed an order for the government to
make it easier for broadband facilities to be built on federal
land.
"If you want broadband access throughout the
society, Congress must ban taxes on access," Bush told the
American Association of Community Colleges annual convention.
"Clear out the underbrush of regulation and we'll get the spread
of broadband technology and America will be better for it."
Bush's broadband push coincides with debate
beginning in the U.S. Senate on whether to renew or make
permanent a ban that bars taxes on Internet access. Lawmakers
are split on whether a ban would boost innovation and the
roll-out of new technologies or deprive states and local
governments of much needed funds.
The campaign of Bush's Democratic challenger,
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, criticized the president for
failing to make the tax ban part of previous tax cut packages.
Further, said Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter,
"The Bush broadband policies don't do anything to provide the
new resources that will be needed to deploy broadband in rural
and urban areas and they are not addressing the regulatory
barriers that prevent deployment."
Already there are some 23.5 million high-speed
Internet lines in service as of June 30, 2003, mostly serving
American homes and small businesses, according to the latest
government data available.
About 13.7 million consumers receive their
service from cable companies, which can cost at least $40 a
month, while 7.7 million customers get broadband from telephone
carriers via digital subscriber lines (DSL) and pay about $30
per month.
The Federal Communications Commission has tried
to reduce regulations on broadband but with mixed success.
Bush also touted a plan for every American to
establish an electronic medical record over the next 10 years
that would be available for doctors to review wherever a person
seeks medical attention.
"These old methods of keeping records are real
threats to patients and their safety and are incredibly costly,"
Bush said. "Modern technology hasn't caught up with a major
aspect of health care and we have to change that."
He pledged Americans would retain privacy of
their records.
