Jerry Ellig on the Universal Service Fund
Jerry Ellig, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, discusses the the FCC’s lifeline assistance benefit funded through the Universal Service Fund (USF). The program, created in 1997, subsidizes phone services for low-income households. The USF is not funded through the federal budget, rather via a fee from monthly phone bills — reaching an all-time high of 17% of telecomm companies’ revenues last year. Ellig discusses the similarities between the USF fee and a tax, how the fee fluctuates, how subsidies to the telecomm industry have boomed in recent years, and how to curb the waste, fraud and abuse that comes as a result of the lifeline assistance benefit.
Related Links
Jerry Ellig’s Biography Mercatus Center
Benefits, Costs and other Important Stuff-Demystifying Regulatory Analysis Ellig, Mercatus Center
The Future of Regulation Ellig, Pepperdine University School of Public Policy
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