Supreme Court Has a Chance To Reform the FCC

The Universal Service Fund has done little or nothing for universal service. Mobile phones and the internet have become ubiquitous in rural areas and among those of low income. Most schools, libraries, and healthcare facilities have been hooked up for years (to the dismay of many teachers). This is thanks to the alacrity of today’s high technology, massive private investments, profound improvements in service quality and proficiency, and constantly falling prices. The Federal Communications Commission program has been marginal at best and sometimes perverse. The program’s defects are due in large part to the political insulation and financial self-dealing that the challengers in the Supreme Court case regard as unconstitutional. If the program passes muster, it will be a beta-tested model for agencies that consolidate regulating, taxing, and spending, managed by agency “stakeholders,” governed only by aspirational legislative standards (make good things universal, and have a nice day!). With the court’s imprimatur, that would be the next growth trajectory of autonomous executive government.