Pai: Net Neutrality Plan Opens Door For New Taxes

Ajit Pai

Ajit Pai, one of two Republican Commissioners on the FCC, has inferred in a Tweet that President Barack Obama’s 332-page “Net Neutrality” document is a scheme for federal micro-managing of the Internet to extract billions in new taxes from consumers and again enforce progressives’ idea of honest, equitable, and balanced content fairness.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler recently acknowledged that the three Democrats on the commission had decided to avoid Congressional input regarding the Internet by adopting President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1934 Communications Act to regulate the Internet with the same federal control as the old AT&T customer monopoly. To make sure that libertarian advocates would remain in the dark, Wheeler “embargoed” release of any of the specifics in the new administrative “policy” that will act as law, according to a story at Brietbart.

The FCC legislation that was passed eighty-one years ago ago bans companies from participating in “unjust or unreasonable discrimination” when providing phone services to customers.

Ajit Pai tweeted a picture of himself holding the 332-page plan just below a picture of a smiling Barack Obama with a comment, “I wish the public could see what’s inside.” The implication depicted Obama as George Orwell’s “Big Brother.”

The Internet isn't broken. We don't need President Obama's nonpublic 332-page plan to "fix" it.
— Ajit Pai (@AjitPaiFCC) February 9, 2015

Pai also released a statement: “President Obama’s plan marks a monumental shift toward government control of the Internet. It gives the FCC the power to micromanage virtually every aspect of how the Internet works,” he said. “The plan explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband… These new taxes will mean higher prices for consumers and more hidden fees that they have to pay.”

Pai’s comments came after FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler penned an op-ed in Wired Magazine detailing his spin on the core aspects of the Democrat’s desire to lump ISPs under the amended Title II of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.