Press Release of National Taxpayers Union.
Re: Opposition to Schools and Libraries Program (Gore Tax).
Date: August 18, 1998.
Source: NTU.

Nation’s Largest Taxpayer Group Unveils Campaign to Repeal Phone Tax for Internet Subsidies:

Group’s Web Site www.goretax.com to Serve as Clearinghouse for News and Views

(Washington, DC) As lawmakers prepare to return to Washington and debate legislation that includes Internet subsidies for schools, libraries, and rural areas, the 300,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU) has formally launched an Internet-based campaign aimed at stopping the tax that funds the transfer scheme the E-Rate of up to 5% on business and residential long distance phone services.

With all their talk of tax cuts, politicians were probably hoping thisfederal phone tax would slip by unnoticed, said NTU President John Berthoud. But our new Web site, www.goretax.com, has got their number. Soon Internet users across America will be urging Vice President Gore and Congress to hang up on this new tax.

The campaign’s Web site, based at www.goretax.com, will serve as a clearinghouse for online news and commentary for and against the tax. It will also include a number of interactive mechanisms designed to mobilize opponents of the tax, such as an online opinion poll, an online petition, and Electronic Bumperstickers for citizens to put on their personal home pages.

Home Internet users are the hardest-hit by this tax, Berthoud observed. As a leading innovator in reaching out to citizens at the grassroots, National Taxpayers Union is taking the next step reaching out to ‘Netizens.' The site was developed by Washington Webworks, LLC, an Alexandria,VA-based company that specializes in Internet public affairs.

WWW.GoreTax.com is the latest addition to an ongoing NTU effort to repeal the E-rate, return Internet access funding choices to communities, and prevent predatory tax policies toward Internet commerce. On February 26, Berthoud testified to Congress that the E-rate violates any and all basic tenets of democratic representation because it allows unelected officials to levy taxes on the American public.

When Washington makes policy, it arrives in a one-size-fits-all package, and local education needs are as diverse as America’s student population Berthoud added. Funding for wiring of classrooms to the Internet should come from the communities, not from the top down.

The E-Rate, known to many as the Gore Tax, was imposed via levies on the telephone companies by the FCC to support Vice President Gore’s initiative of connecting every school classroom to the Internet. Congressional leaders have criticized the program as a back-door tax imposed without direct

Congressional consent and the General Accounting Office has stated that the FCC illegally created two of the corporations that administer the program.

The FCC has gone so far as to prevent phone companies from informing customers of the true nature of the Gore Tax, even though the charge is passed along to them, Berthoud concluded. This stealth taxation deprives Americans of the information they need to make thoughtful choices about the federal government’s role in subsidizing Internet access. WWW.GoreTax.com is designed to fill this gap.

National Taxpayers Union, a non-profit, non-partisan citizen organization founded in 1969, works for lower taxes, less wasteful spending, taxpayer rights, and accountable government at all levels. Information on NTU’s other programs is available on-line at www.ntu.org.