1) Biden Plots a Government Take-Over of the Internet
In the days ahead, the Federal Communication Commission will re-install Obama-era rules, called “net neutrality”, to regulate internet access and content.
It seems patently obvious that since nearly every American uses the Internet (95% of adults), we’re doing just fine without government interference. But FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel explains: “Every one of us — no matter who we are or where we live — needs broadband service to have a fair shot at success in the digital age.” She says that her agency is just reinstating rules to make the internet “fast, open and fair.”
We didn’t know that broadband has become a human right. However, our forthcoming study at CTUP by Phil Kerpen and University of Chicago professor Casey Mulligan, shows that the deregulation of the internet under Trump had two positive effects.
First, it made broadband more affordable:
Second, deregulation brought better and speedier service. Wireless internet speeds increased by a factor of eight AFTER the FCC regs were lifted in 2017:
And precisely zero of the absurd negative consequences predicted by the media and other Democrats happened.
This comes on the heels of the FCC already adopting Biden's "digital discrimination" rules, that set them up as the equity police for the Internet, based on an absurd disparate impact standard.
So now we'll have economic and equity regulation of your home and mobile Internet service. Expect to pay more for worse service.
We hate to keep sounding like the skunk at the Fed and Wall Street’s garden party to celebrate coming interest rate cuts, but we will shout it out as loud as we can: INFLATION IS NOT COMING DOWN!!
Here is the latest index of the price of more than 20 major commodities. In just four months these prices have skyrocketed by 12%. Gas is now eclipsing $4 and even $5 a gallon in many markets.
3) Wisconsin Becomes the 28th State to Ban Zuckerbucks
On Tuesday, Wisconsin voters delivered a big win for election integrity.
They easily passed two referendums that prevent local election officials from using private grants or non-profit “helpers” to administer elections.
Democratic Governor Tony Evers had vetoed the GOP legislature’s efforts to avoid a repeat of 2020, when the Center for Tech and Civil Life (a group financed by Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg) spent hundreds of millions of dollars in battleground states to change how elections were administered. The money effectively created a privately financed get-out-the-vote effort encouraged by local election officials.
Green Bay, the state’s third-largest city, effectively turned over its election operations to Zuckerberg’s cronies. The Federalist reports “Open records requests show a longtime Democrat operative who was embedded in the Green Bay City Clerk’s office during the 2020 election offered to help ‘cure’ absentee ballot envelopes and was given the keys to the room where absentee ballots were stored.”
The passage of the referendums makes Wisconsin the 28th state to ban “Zuckbucks”-style electioneering.
Unfortunately, Biden is replacing the Zuckbuck apparatus with a taxpayer-funded federal voter-turnout operation, as we've previously reported. We’re sure that this operation will be nonpartisan and do its best to turn out Republican voters.
New York City is losing population and businesses at a rapid pace, so you’d think the city elders would be coming up with ways to entice people back.
Instead, the brilliant pols in New York now want to charge a hefty toll on people whenever they enter the city.
Manhattan will now charge vehicles from $15 to $36 – a tax that is expected to generate $3.4 billion a year. The city is so desperate for money, it is also planning to charge New York City Marathon organizers $750,000 a year to use the Staten Island’s Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge for a few hours.
Maybe they will move the iconic marathon to New Jersey.
These taxes are supposed to reduce “congestion,” but New York is being hollowed out by the highest taxes in the country. How much income, sales, and property taxes will the politicians raise to support the bloated government if no one comes into the city to work, shop, or attend a show?
5) Speaking of Dysfunctional Blue Cities: DC Mayor Proposes Raising the Sales and Payroll Tax
There’s an old saying about Washington DC: it’s half a libertarian’s dream. It charges high taxes for no public services.
Well now taxes are going up again in the nation’s capital and we just loved this headline from the Washington Post:
In what universe is raising the sales tax by a percentage point and more than doubling the payroll tax "targeted"? Maybe they mean the plan puts a target on the chest of every DC taxpayer.
DC already has a 10% meal tax and a 6% sales tax on everything else. Mayor Bowser wants to go to 7%. The top income tax rate is 10.75%.
If liberals take full control of government, at the top of their “to-do” list will be to make DC a state.
