Obama Administration’s Next Prospective Illegal Power Grab – That Will Yet Again Cost You Money

Note: This first appeared on LessGovernment.org.

The Obama Administration has been an anti-Constitutional, anti-rule of law, unilateral power grabbing nightmare mess.

Wonder why the economy remains a train wreck?  This is why.

If the American people and their businesses are overrun with new government taxes and regulations, things get more expensive and less productive.

If these new taxes and regulations are delivered via a flurry of illegal activity – as they in large swaths have been by this Administration – you can add additional, capricious uncertainty to the mix.

None of this bodes well for We the People – trying to extricate ourselves from this government-created economic quagmire.

There is a near perfect correlation between the size of government – and the prices of private goods and services and the effectiveness with which they can be provided.

The bigger government is, the more expensive and inefficient the private sector is forced to be.

With each new tax and regulation, the cost of doing business goes up.  Which (of course) means for We the People the prices for these businesses’ goods and services rise as well.

And of course, every second these businesses are forced to spend contorting themselves into pretzels of government compliance – is a second they can’t spend bettering their products and reducing their prices.

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Obama’s “We Can’t Wait” mantra is nothing more than his (re-)announcing that he will do whatever he wants, whenever he wants – regardless of whether or not he has the legal authority to do so.

Hello, even bigger government and greater uncertainty.

And contrary to the Democrat-Media 2012 campaign mantra – it began happening well before the Tea Party 2010 election.

Much of Obama’s wish list – Cap & Trade, Card Check, Network Neutrality, anti-First Amendment campaign finance “reform,” and on, and on, and… – was so Leftist that even the pre-2010 Democrat Congress wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot vote.

Thusly, Obama “Can’t Wait” – and has been illegally imposing it all and then some, via his Executive Branch Agencies, Commissions, Departments and Boards.

This isn’t how a Constitutional republic works.

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One of the worst offending Obama Administration wings is the Federal Communications Commission – the FCC.

The Obama FCC has spent virtually their entire term tilting at Leftist ideological windmills – illegally expanding the government’s role in a wide array of areas old and new.

Rather than doing things it’s supposed to be doing.  Things that favor and will maximize individual freedom – and improve Communications’ service and price – for We the People.

The Obama FCC wasted the better part of two years ramming through it’s illegal imposition of Net Neutrality.  Which inserts the government into every facet of the heretofore government-free, fabulously successful World Wide Web.

They illegally imposed price caps on wireless phone and Web service.

When the FCC isn’t outright blocking private sector mergers (AT&T-T-Mobile), they are incessantly dragging out their approval (Comcast-NBC).

And cramming them full of illegal capitulation “conditions.”  Which are just more examples of the FCC writing law – when they and everyone else know that’s what Congress and only Congress is supposed to do.

For instance, Comcast has to for seven years comply with the FCC’s absurd Net Neutrality – regardless of the (almost inevitable overturn) outcome of the multiple Net Neutrality lawsuits filed against the Commission for its broader illegal imposition.

The examples of the Obama FCC Gone Wild are myriad.

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And now, we desperately need more spectrum – the airspace wireless providers use to continue to expand their services to We the People.

Smart phone and tablet data use – driven largely by We the People watching videos – is going through the roof.  More spectrum is vital to accommodating this great and growing surge.

It is Congress’ job to pass spectrum legislation – which then authorizes the FCC to auction it off.  We are currently at the Congressional portion of the program.

So, how should the bill be crafted so as to maximize spectrum to the private markets – to the maximum benefit of all?

Not the Senate way.  The Senate’s spectrum bill is a green light for the FCC to again Go Wild – and load down the purchases with all sorts of illegal regulations.

Just like they did with the Comcast-NBC merger.

The Senate version allows the FCC to choose winners and losers – by precluding some willing bidders from participating.

Meanwhile, some Senators in a letter chastised the House spectrum bill – precisely because it prevents the FCC from Going Wild.

Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) support the Senate version of the legislation but said the House bill would inappropriately tie the hands of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

As we’ve seen – with Obama’s FCC, it is quite appropriate to tie hands.

In fact, the last FCC could have used some binding as well.

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The Commission was for the last spectrum auction left to its own devices – and they too Went Wild.

The auction was riddled with absurd rules, and force fed purchasers illegal regulatory capitulations.  Google was allowed to muck it up with special stipulations – so as to slam available spectrum with Net Neutrality.

As a result, the auction was a gi-normous bust – it didn’t generate nearly as much coin as anticipated.  Because prospective buyers were turned off by and turned away from the overly-regulated spectrum.

And first Verizon, then CTIA-The Wireless Association sued to unshackle the spectrum (though both suits were eventually dropped).

All of this sound familiar?

So the House, with its current spectrum legislation, should be forgiven – and in fact praised – for wanting to “tie the hands of the FCC.”

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In short, we need unfettered, unafflicted spectrum auctions.  And we need them in short order.

The spectrum auction legislation absolutely should strictly proscribe the FCC from illegally injecting Leftist policies – and the Crony Socialist choosing of who can and who cannot participate.

The House has it right.  The Senate does not.

Let’s get it done.