Forbes There are roughly 60 days left before the election. I doubt I could get the local dog catcher candidate to take a policy position 60 days out from the election, much less a complicated position. The election has the nation polarized. In Ohio the race is neck and neck +/- a few points. I figure that represents my customers pretty well. If I believe that the lobbying efforts would be fruitless, why would I expose my business to retribution by alienating members of one party or the other? Just doesn't make sense to me. Chris -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Forbes Mercy Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2012 2:40 PM To: [email protected]; Legislative Activity for WISPA Subject: Re: [WISPA] Oh Great take from the poor and give to the rich! Chris,
Let me reason this out with you and Jack. I've always felt WISPA is too conservative in simply making filings and a rare visit. I've felt that education of our Congressional members has helped them remember us when staff reviews new laws. What we haven't done is bear any pressure or seek to make our issues into the public consciousness. This is an election year, a rare moment when small issues become campaign promises (whether kept or not). I will only touch on politics for a moment, keep in mind a Democrat FCC Chairman is proud that he converted USF to CAF and seeks to expand it's revenue by adding broadband. The Republicans are screaming for 'no new tax' issues, just last night Ryan called out Corporate Welfare. Here we are with this huge outdated tax and the FCC wants to make it bigger by taxing a whole new industry. The main points we can make are: 1) Congress said no tax on the Internet and now the FCC wants to go around them and tax the Internet anyway 2) 100% of the new tax would go to corporate welfare not directly helping a single tax payer, it's socialized Internet 3) The Telco industry isn't even a Broadband company, they are a telephone company no more than cable is an Internet company. At least cable got investors to build their networks, telco wants the government to pay for all of their expansion. 4) The cost of Wireless to expand to areas is a fraction of the cost of wireline but is being completely left out. I think a properly briefed politician could get excited about helping to push our agenda, make it public and dramatically raise the profile of our discussion. Imagine a politician who took a pledge of no new taxes having to take on the burden of having approved a new tax in CAF. There is nothing radical about taking advantage of opportunities and the election cycle seems primed for our issues. Politics is always a radical and risky proposition but no one here has yet to say how this will hurt us other to say it's risky. I'm all ears. Forbes On 8/29/2012 11:37 AM, chris cooper wrote: I wouldn't do that in the pre election climate. It seems like it could be taken a couple of different ways, any one of which might alienate 50% of your customers. cc -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Forbes Mercy Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2012 2:25 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Re: [WISPA] Oh Great take from the poor and give to the rich! I wonder if it would benefit us to send a "New Tax Coming to a Constituent Near You" release where in this era of taxes being waged to pay off debt, a new tax is being proposed by the FCC to the broadband industry which will only serve to subsidize the telephone industry with broadband deriving zero benefit? Instead of defensive it's a pro-active move where politicians running under a no new taxes platform will have to roll it in. I know the FCC wouldn't be thrilled with us but we've felt all along the USF to CAF conversion was just the FCC helping the Telco industry to do a hostile takeover of our broadband industry with government aid and we shouldn't be afraid to say it. Forbes On 8/28/2012 2:28 PM, Jack Unger wrote: Throw out that word "tax" and everyone gets all excited but this is really old news and not really any news at all. Just the transition of the USF program (subsidies to extend phone service to rural areas) into the CAF program where the subsidies will now go to extend broadband service to the boonies. WISPA has made a ton of FCC filings on this already. Most of them are defensive in nature (preventing WISPs from being overbuilt) but a few are offensive - trying to open up the possibilities for WISPs that want subsidies (most don't) to get them. jack On 8/28/2012 1:20 PM, Jim Patient wrote: http://www.ijreview.com/2012/08/13896-fcc-may-soon-tax-internet-service/ Jim Patient Link Technologies, Inc. 314-735-0270 x102 http://wlan1.com http://towercoverage.com <http://towercoverage.com/> http://www.linktechs.net <http://www.linktechs.net/> _______________________________________________ Wireless mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless -- Jack Unger - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc. Author (2003) - "Deploying License-Free Wireless Wide-Area Networks" Serving the WISP Community since 1993 www.ask-wi.com 760-678-5033 [email protected] _______________________________________________ Wireless mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.2197 / Virus Database: 2437/5231 - Release Date: 08/28/12 _______________________________________________ Wireless mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.2197 / Virus Database: 2437/5233 - Release Date: 08/29/12
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