Friday, April 02, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Advocating ignorance

'Watchdogs' want to keep you in the dark about phone fees

Self-styled consumer "advocates" are up in arms because local telephone companies have gone to great expense ... to educate consumers.

Telephone providers have been separating so-called "regulatory assessment fees" -- and other government-mandated surcharges they can pass along -- and publishing the amounts as line items on customer bills. Among other things, the surcharges subsidize telephone service to rural areas; defray the cost wireless companies must absorb to make cell phone numbers "portable" between one carrier and another; and underwrite specialized phone services for people who are deaf or have other disabilities. And that's just for starters.

You'd think the watchdog community would be delighted that local telecom providers have gone to the trouble of isolating these fees and listing them on their customers' bills, letting telephone users know how their hard-earned dollars are being used.

You'd be wrong. On Tuesday, the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission, asking the regulators to limit the practice. Why? The fees are simply a "cost of doing business," the advocates claim, and acting otherwise can be "misleading" or "deceptive."

What gall.

"The cost of doing business" includes, say, employee compensation, building leases, equipment and maintenance ... government mandates forced on entrepreneurs by do-gooders are something entirely different.

Then again, we're dealing with "consumer advocates," who -- in many cases -- are little more than big government shills. Their interest in promoting the education and welfare of individual consumers appears spotty, at best.

The pro-regulation crowd makes Herculean efforts to impose a panoply of hidden costs on businesses, all with the best of intentions, of course. Who could object to making telephone service cheaper for rural customers? But after the bureaucrats offer the illusion of a free lunch by forcing private-sector businesses to provide expensive goodies to certain segments of the population, the "consumer advocates" expect the companies to merely pass along the higher costs without ever explaining to their customers why their monthly bills keep climbing.

And of course, the Naderite crowd understands that listing these charges on consumer statements makes it more difficult to continue heaping additional mandates onto ratepayers' bills ... without eliciting some legitimate questions from the people who are picking up the costs of these programs.

In a competitive marketplace, savvy entrepreneurs can't get away with simply jacking up prices without offering some justification to their customers. It's called educating the public -- a practice that, sadly, seems lost on the "pro-consumer" Naderite crowd.