Law California exploring taxing text messages

https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-to-consider-taxing-text-messages-reports-say

California state regulators have been working on a plan to charge mobile phone users a text messaging fee intended to fund programs that make phone service accessible to the low-income residents, reports said Tuesday.

The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on the proposal next month, but critics have already come out against the scheme, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

“It’s a dumb idea,” Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council business group, told the paper. “This is how conversations take place in this day and age, and it’s almost like saying there should be a tax on the conversations we have.”

While the amount consumers would be expected to pay remained unclear, some business groups are saying the new charges could cost wireless users more than $44 million a year, FOX11 Los Angeles reported.

Charges may also be applied retroactively to messages sent in the past five years, which has raised questions concerning the proposal’s legality, Rufus Jeffress, vice president of the Bay Area Council, told the San Francisco Bay Area's KNTV-TV. The “alarming precedent” could chalk up to a bill of more than $220 million for consumers, the Mercury News reported.

The wireless industry argues that the fees would put carriers at a disadvantage since competing messaging services like Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp would not be charged the new fees, FOX11 reported.

Those against the proposal said that wireless customers already pay into the state’s Public Purpose Programs, which they call “healthy and well-funded” with nearly $1 billion in its budget, the Mercury News reported. But state regulators disagree, saying the budget has increased more than $300 million over six years, KNTV reported.

Residents lamented the potential tax, calling it “dumb” and “unfair.”

“To have them charge us something else is just dumb,” a Bay Area resident told KNTV. “I think it’s very unfair, especially for the people that can barely pay for their cell phone plan already.”

 

[neverendingmidi]

Literal fake news, read the whole quote:

Spoiler: Ted Lieu on government-controlled speech

"It's a very good point you make," Lieu said. "I would love if I could have more than five minutes to question witnesses. Unfortunately, I don't get that opportunity. However, I would love to be able to regulate the content of speech. The First Amendment prevents me from doing so, and that's simply a function of the First Amendment, but I think over the long run, it's better the government does not regulate the content of speech."

He end the quote saying it's better the government doesn't control speech, how the media twisted that into "OMG HE WANTS TO CONTROL SPEECH", I'll never know.

That's not saying he's against controlling speech, that's him saying the stupid first amendment prevents it, damn it, so I guess we can't do it.

Edit: It's on par with that Salon article that got wiped from the site with the pedo talking about how he'd love to fuck kids, but oh well it's illegal, so he doesn't.

It's not the fact that a person doesn't do something illegal in order to avoid trouble, it's the fact that they see nothing wrong with it other than the illegality of it in the first place.

 

[Dan Abrams]

At this point I wonder how long it will be before Cali’s tech and entertainment industries completely fuck off and move their operations to a cheaper state.

Probably never, as being "Californian" is so core to the identity of companies like Apple and all those Silicon Valley startups. Even if things got really bad they could raise a stink with the state legislature and get some kind of deal because California doesn't want to lose them either.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

I don't know how to run a state. All I know is that when I'm spiraling into debt and destitution in simcity, the worst thing you can do is spike taxes and take out exorbitant loans and rezone haphazardly for a bunch of hyper-expansion, because you're just buying five minutes of a high in exchange for exponentially worse problems tomorrow.

So it's really impressive to me that the people running California are so much worse at simcity than I am, given that they clearly spend far more of their time playing video games than I do.

 

[Whatevs]

At this point I wonder how long it will be before Cali’s tech and entertainment industries completely fuck off and move their operations to a cheaper state.

They practically already do, they get tax breaks for filming in places like British Columbia, Toronto, Georgia, Massachusetts and quite a few other places. Even Cali gives them tax breaks, but their taxes are still shit that companies would rather film in those other places and keep the prestige of having studio offices in Cali.

It's the biggest fucking scam, Hollywood screams how we all should be paying more taxes, yet these fuckers take any breaks they can get and cook the books so they look like they hardly make profit from the shit they are making.

And that's not even counting the free joint production money they get from the Chinese government to make the movie China friendly. Even more so if they film parts or all of it in China. But that's another shit ball of shit Randy.

 

[Absolutego]

That's not saying he's against controlling speech, that's him saying the stupid first amendment prevents it, damn it, so I guess we can't do it.

Edit: It's on par with that Salon article that got wiped from the site with the pedo talking about how he'd love to fuck kids, but oh well it's illegal, so he doesn't.

It's not the fact that a person doesn't do something illegal in order to avoid trouble, it's the fact that they see nothing wrong with it other than the illegality of it in the first place.

You and I have vastly different interpretations of that statement. Saying "it's better for society that the government prevents it" strikes me as saying the inclination to censor is so natural that it's good we have the first amendment to prevent people from giving in to that desire.

Which, given the mobs of people swarming to deplatform anyone who disagrees with them politically off the internet, strikes me as very accurate. If anything, first amendment coverage should be expanded in the digital age.

 

[Particle Bored]

Literal fake news, read the whole quote:

Spoiler: Ted Lieu on government-controlled speech

"It's a very good point you make," Lieu said. "I would love if I could have more than five minutes to question witnesses. Unfortunately, I don't get that opportunity. However, I would love to be able to regulate the content of speech. The First Amendment prevents me from doing so, and that's simply a function of the First Amendment, but I think over the long run, it's better the government does not regulate the content of speech."

He end the quote saying it's better the government doesn't control speech, how the media twisted that into "OMG HE WANTS TO CONTROL SPEECH", I'll never know.

You said "end the quote," but he kept talking:

I would urge these private sector companies to regulate it better themselves.

"I want to control content of speech, but I can't because I'm in government. I guess that's a good thing. I'd rather these monopolistic tech companies do it for me."

 

[Absolutego]

You said "end the quote," but he kept talking:

"I want to control content of speech, but I can't because I'm in government. I guess that's a good thing. I'd rather these monopolistic tech companies do it for me."

I stand corrected, that's what I get for taking an article's "full quote" as gospel. Fuck this guy.