As I look at over $15 in fees and taxes on my telephone bill of $64, I wonder what has Congress or my state legislator added this year. Then there are the costs they add to my electric bill, or how about the gas and oil bills?
Instead I hear nightly news and NHPR talking about Trump’s taxes or impeachment. Just give me a person in state government who isn’t adding a less-noticed fee or tax to one of my monthly bills.
Just one tiny example is the Universal Service Fund. The USF was supposed to exist only until schools and libraries got internet. They were 85% connected then Congress found they could tap the fund for free phones for the poor. How many other businesses pay the USF, which of course the business adds to the cost of their products, which we also pay when we buy the product?
But there doesn’t seem to be a talk show host or reporter who has looked at what the little guy pays. They push another story about Trump or some politician who while in Washington looks for ways, like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, to add a fee or tax for us to pay while they find another way to spend our tax dollars to buy a voter’s vote.
HARRIET CADY
Deerfield