COMMENTARY: One government program for GOP to abolish

COMMENTARY: One government program for GOP to abolish By John Decker Cagle Cartoons Newspaper Syndicate September 28, 2026 - 9:00 pm Milton Friedman famously wrote “nothing is truthful imperishable arsenic a impermanent authorities program.” Perhaps obscurity is his contented much evident than with the Universal Service Fund, which, despite having vastly outlasted its intended purpose, many lawmakers are militantly intent on expanding rather than phasing out. The money is amended known to america as 1 of several seemingly random fees tacked onto our telephone bills each month. When the underlying model was created by FDR in 1934, its intent was to collect contributions from users of long‑distance telephone lines to build telephone lines to places that did not have them yet. After that goal was accomplished, it was repurposed to subsidize broadband for consumers in high‑cost areas and in schools and libraries. Fast forward to 2026. Now that the long‑distance telephone bills taxed to pay for it have dwindled, it has gone from a cookware of wealth in request of determination to spend, to a spending programme in request of a new cookware of wealth as the publication origin connected a shrinking tax base zooms unsustainably upward. Some members of Congress are suggesting taxing broadband providers or large tech companies to keep it going. A much amended thought would be to declare victory on universal service and shut it down. The idea that a repurposed Universal Service Fund is needed to subsidize broadband is laughable because there are already more than 100 federal programs housed within 15 federal agencies where funding can or must be used to expand internet access. The Government Accountability Office noted that the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program “provides astir $42 cardinal to grow broadband entree successful each states and territories.” There is more wealth for broadband subsidies in Washington today than anyone knows what to do with, and less demand than ever earlier as SpaceX and Amazon compete to supply high‑speed satellite access to the handful of remote locations that remain offline. For the vanishingly tiny figure of people who remain underserved despite 100 federal programs at their disposal, providing access is not simply a matter of giving the government more money. What we have learned from such efforts historically is that when lawmakers claim they need more funding to grow rural broadband, the money is too often surreptitiously diverted to communities without a need for basic service. Rather than providing access to an underserved area, these federal dollars have been used to improve broadband speeds in communities that already have internet access—and may not even be rural in the slightest—resulting in taxpayers essentially paying for a duplicate service or “overbuilding.” No amount of federal money ever seems to be enough. Yet Congress—yes, even Republicans, who should know better and have voted against internet taxation earlier—are giving information to expanding the Universal Service Fund. The FCC’s own investigation has calculated that projected reforms could add as much as $17.96 a period to consumer bills. That is equivalent to a tax hike of more than $215 per year per individual to fund a program that should not be in the first place. If the outcomes of this midterm predetermination rhythm are to be dictated by who holds the amended way connected to affordability, some parties request to get existent connected this issue. If Congress cannot destroy a program as blatantly unnecessary as the Universal Service Fund, what faith can anyone have that they can cut any spending at all? Jon Decker is the enforcement manager of American Commitment and a elder chap astatine the Parkview Institute.