Barton Calls USF Bloated, Unsustainable

BARTON CALLS USF BLOATED, UNSUSTAINABLE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
On Wednesday, the House Telecommunications Subcommittee heard testimony from 10 witnesses on the Universal Service Fund, which telecom companies pay into to underwrite phone service to rural and underserved areas. Republicans on the committee were in general agreement that the fund, essentially a tax on long-distance telephone service providers, needs major reform, "if we can't kill it," said House Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX), clearly favoring the latter. Saying the fund was bloated and unsustainable, Rep Barton argued that it was meant to underwrite one telephone hookup in every house but had morphed into a gold-plated subsidy for multiple services at escalating cost to those paying into the system, which could be easily gamed. "The Universal Service Fund as we know it today consumes more than $7 billion. B as in 'boy'," he said. "In 1996, when we passed the Telecommunications Act, that same fund spent less than $1 billion. So it's grown 7,000 percent, or something like that, in the last 10 years."
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