Telecommunications issues are among the top priorities for action as the first session of the 110th Congress winds down, with lawmakers pushing for an extension of an Internet tax moratorium as well as sweeping legislation to overhaul the U.S. patent system.
I love listening to music. You won’t find me too far from my iPod when I’m commuting between my home in Pittsburgh and work here in Washington, D.C. When I was growing up, my friends and I listened to the radio constantly — we only had AM at the time — and there were a lot of great stations that played music we loved.
Hearing the word “Radiohead” might cause some of us in Congress to think of oversized headphones hooked into a table-sized sound system — for others it might even sound like an iPod-related affliction.
Consider the events leading up to Jan. 1, 2000, a day popularly known as “Y2K.” There was a common fear that, when the clock struck midnight to ring in the new millennium, computers all across the country would simultaneously crash.
In February 2006, President Bush signed into law legislation that designates midnight on Feb. 17, 2009, as the date to complete the transition from analog to digital television broadcasting. Digital television is an innovative new type of over-the-air broadcasting technology that enables TV stations to provide dramatically clearer pictures and better sound quality. The transition from analog to digital television represents the most significant advancement of television technology since color TV was introduced decades ago.
The ongoing debate over the proposed merger of satellite radio providers XM and Sirius is high volume and contentious, as diverse interests work to influence the impending decisions by the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. In my view, the merger is in the public interest and should be approved.
It’s a logical question and the one I get asked repeatedly by both sides of the Internet tax debate. The answer is simple, telecommunications taxes in the United States have traditionally been levied at a rate far higher than other types of sales and business taxes; in fact, telecommunications are taxed at a rate that rivals, and in some places exceeds, the taxes on tobacco and alcohol.
On Oct. 16, the House voted 405-2 to extend the current Internet tax moratorium — which expires on Nov. 1 — for another four years. The Senate should do the same, rather than enact a permanent moratorium, because permanent action is likely to invoke a far higher law: the law of unintended consequences.
In his book “The Age of Turbulence,” Alan Greenspan states that “the most important economic decision U.S. lawmakers and courts will confront in the next quarter century will be to clarify rules involving intellectual property.” This is hardly an overstatement. Patents and copyrights contribute trillions of dollars to the U.S. economy. By some accounts, intellectual property assets comprise one-third of the capitalized value of American companies. The U.S. is a world leader in technology, communications and entertainment partly because of its robust and balanced protection of intellectual property. Yet there are challenges ahead.
The American patent system has been instrumental in the success of our country. It has resulted in technology that expanded production, created wealth and thus elevated the standard of living of our people. Yet there are powerful forces that would dramatically change the basic patent system that has served us so well for more than 200 years.
