Phone legislation seeks a pricing system fair to all
Published May 3, 2003
Re: Sticking it to phone users, editorial, May 2.
The objective behind the telecommunications legislation recently passed in Tallahassee is to create an environment for residential telephone users that is in keeping with the realities of today's marketplace.
There is not a working market for residential wired telephone customers in Florida. Because of decades of mandated below-cost basic rates supported by high access charges, the vigorous competition the business market enjoys has not reached the landline residential market.
Contrast that to the wireless marketplace, where there is intense competition for both business and residential customers. This is due partially to technological differences, but it is also due to unsubsidized prices. Demand, price and innovation drive competition, not regulation.
We need to achieve the same kind of vibrant market on the wireline side. The largest users of the wireline telephone network are residential customers. It is impossible to create a fully functioning market without dealing with the subsidies that operated in the old regulatory world.
That is the rebalancing the telephone industry needs to accomplish - take the old access subsidies and incorporate them into the basic service prices those subsidies have always supported. As a result, each service will bear its own costs and that will light a fire under the competitors who now play only in the business market.
No one is interested in "sticking it to phone users." The only intention of this legislation is to create a pricing system that is fair to everyone, an economy that encourages investment and jobs and a market that is driven by consumer choice, not by uneven subsidies.
-- Alan Ciamporcero, president, Southeast region, public policy and external affairs, Verizon Communications, Tampa
Ready to go with the competition
I want Verizon to know that I will do all I can to ensure the success of its agenda. The rate hike is being implemented to "increase competition" and I want Verizon to know that the day a competitor enters our market for local phone service, I will be the first to sign up.
Thank you, Verizon, for the suggestion. I won't forget.
-- Doris Whelan, St. Petersburg
Corporate arrogance
Re: Sticking it to phone users.
Kudos to you for your editorial of May 2 and a special thanks for printing in bold type the "courageous" area legislators who voted affirmatively for the largest rate increase ever for local phone service.
I have never seen a more blatant example of corporate arrogance and legislative cowardice as is the case in this instance.
And how about a "Profile in Courage" award for Gov. Jeb Bush who in an election year vetoed a similar bill but one year later finds it acceptable?
-- Francis A. Cerio, Palm Harbor
Tell Bush to veto bill
Everyone should call or e-mail Gov. Jeb Bush and ask him not to sign the bill that would increase our phone rates. I doubt raising the rates will bring competition to the state. Are you aware of any phone companies showing an interest in setting up shop here?
And don't you remember? This is the same argument that the cable industry used a while ago, and not only have I not seen any competition, but my cable bill keeps going up.
The fact is, the use of land phones is going down. With the low rates and the free nationwide long distance that wireless offers, more and more people are disconnecting their land phone service and using their wireless phone as their only phone.
It seems now that he is not eligible for re-election, the governor has no interest in blocking this bill. How ironic that his brother, the president, is trying to pass tax cuts so we can jump-start the economy by having a little more spending money, and Jeb Bush is prepared to sign a bill that will eat up some of that extra spending money. Do they ever talk to one another? Please call the governor and tell him, "No increase."
-- Loretta A. Bulebosh, St. Petersburg
Standing up to the freeloaders
I applaud Gov. Jeb Bush and Republican Legislature for standing up to the whining special interest groups that constantly demand large sums of other people's money. The truth is there are people in this state and nation paying the bills and others who coast along for free. It is these freeloaders who constantly vote for every special project that comes along like the bullet train and class size amendment.
The teacher unions are among the biggest whiners for more money yet they had millions of dollars to fund the Bill McBride campaign. They were big supporters of the class size amendment, which would not have even passed had the Florida Supreme Court not prohibited the estimated costs from being published on the ballot.
-- Ronnie Dubs, St. Petersburg
Let's help our fellow humans
It is very disheartening to read letters to the editor that openly express disdain for any help the state or federal governments extend to people who need it - badly.
Many honest, hardworking men and women will not escape the level of minimum wage, which of course not only leaves them without medical care insurance but also unable to meet life's barest necessities to even survive.
We, as a people, have an obligation, not for any Christian or other religious reasons, but simply because those less fortunate are fellow human beings who live in the same world that we do, but have to struggle to survive.
Would I want to pay higher taxes to help these people? Yes, I would. Without children in school, would I want to pay higher taxes for better public schooling? Yes, I would. Would I vote to replace our entire inefficient, inept and terrible Florida Legislature? Yes, I would.
-- Edward Costello, Largo
Tax cuts will bring civic turmoil
If President Bush gives some group $550-billion in tax cuts, then some other group will lose $550-billion in taxes, right? Who? States, counties, cities and school boards. That will force them to do two things.
First, they will have to cut essential services, like highway, park and library maintenance, schools and soccer fields, and police, fire and health departments (in a SARS environment).
Second, they will have to invent, increase and hide as "fees and charges" a plague of new taxes on sewer, water, garbage, electricity, phone and cable TV bills, real estate, gasoline, building permits, business licenses, and so forth. Those taxes are highly regressive, which means that they hurt small businesses, workers and fixed-income retirees.
You can already see our Florida Legislature, counties, cities and school boards in chaos, as they struggle to do these two things. The Bush tax cut is really Bush tax chaos.
Please do not let Bush give his silver-spoon buddies $550-billion or more and force our Florida Legislature, counties, cities, school boards, small businesses, workers and fixed-income retirees, into this chaos. Please ask Sens. Bob Graham and Bill Nelson, and Reps. Mike Bilirakis and Bill Young, to vote "no" to Bush tax chaos.
-- Early McMullen Sorenson, Dunedin
It's not government's money
Re: Tax cut letters, April 24.
A note to the letter writers who oppose tax cuts:
A tax cut does not involve the "government's" money. More correctly it is a reduction in money that would be taken from taxpayers in the future, including the middle class.
The debate involves the documented evidence that income left in taxpayers' hands promotes growth and ultimately more income for the government to perform its constitutional functions and to dispense aid to the needy.
The source of all the criticism is obvious when a large number of citizens pay little or no income taxes to begin with.
-- David Schiltz, Floral City
The trouble with tax cuts
Republican leaders in Congress must be told that in a competitive free market economy it is not the responsibility of the taxpayers to subsidize capital formation. Why should the taxpayers take the risk of investing their money in corporate capital without receiving any of the profits? Supply-side tax cuts are a normative government effort designed to favor the privilege few - not the taxpayers, employees or consumers.
Further, the Republicans have not learned that giving billions in tax cuts to the suppliers will not stimulate the economy if the corporations see hard times ahead. President Bush should have learned this lesson from watching Fed chairman Alan Greenspan lowering interest rates repeatedly and failing to produce a recovery for the same reason. The Republicans are tearing to pieces our market economy and along with it our health, education and Social Security system with their tax-cut ideas. They need to understand macroeconomics in a positive competitive free market economy.
-- Daniel J. Roque, Tampa
Government is often too quick to spend
County and state governments can't spend our tax dollars (also called "fees") fast enough. I need convincing that all budget expenditures are really necessary.
Millions of dollars were spent on the Pinellas Trail and now county commissioners are proposing to spend $15-million on the Progress Energy Trail. There are so few people using the Pinellas Trail that a new Energy Trail is not only not necessary, but a total waste. It appears County Commissioners think their job is to dream up new ways to spend our tax dollars and then ask for more.
County Commissioners are not alone. Tallahassee has the same attitude and spending habits. The state doesn't seem to know the difference between an essential and a frivolous project. Education is important, but building sprawling schools over many acres is not being thrifty. Multistory buildings cost less and have less maintenance. Economize on the structures and use that money for additional classrooms and teacher pay raises.
I'd like to see the Times write about officials' "pet projects" - those that are not essential. My definition of essential is that which we can't do without. The Energy Trail would be an example of something that is not essential.
-- Paul Miller, Tarpon Springs
Note Florida's fate
One way for the nation to understand the effects that President Bush's tax cuts would have on the country is to look at what Gov. Jeb Bush's tax cuts have done to this state.
-- Joseph Perugini, Tarpon Springs
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