INTERNET HOOKUP FEE IS SNEAKY TAX

One of the sneakiest moves in recent years at the federal level has to be the so-called Internet hookup fee for schools, libraries and rural health care being imposed on telephone customers by the Federal Communications Commission. The discounted hookups are financed through charges on telephone companies, which pass them on to customers. Those fees, which flow into the Universal Service Fund, are showing up on telephone bills for the first time this month and next.

Critics have dubbed it the "Gore tax," after Vice President Al Gore, who has pushed for Internet connections for these purposes. Customers of AT&T, the nation's largest long-distance carrier, will see a 93-cent monthly fee on their bills.

Calling the fee a "tax, pure and simple," Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft has introduced a bill to require its approval by a vote of Congress. "This was the great issue settled by the Boston Tea Party, the Revolution and the Constitution: Americans cannot be taxed without their consent, given directly or through their elected representatives."

Ashcroft added: "Under this bill, if the FCC wants to tax telephone service, it would need to persuade Congress and the president to approve the policy in the usual and time-honored fashion." Ashcroft is joined by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has vowed to lead a House effort to stop the charge.

Spokesmen for the FCC say they have received more than 30,000 requests from schools and libraries nationwide. So what? People and institutions with laudable goals are always looking for their very own hookup to government funding of all kinds.

Ashcroft is right. More important, he is vindicating a crucial principle of the American founding: No taxation without representation. Congress should pass his bill. Let the vice president campaign on this proposal during his upcoming 2000 presidential run.