The Transportation Department had a rule requiring airlines to provide the total price for air fair but the industry is fighting that rule in court:

"Meanwhile, Spirit Airlines, Allegiant Air and Southwest Airlines - with backing from industry trade associations - are asking the Supreme Court to reverse an appeals court ruling forcing them to include taxes in their advertised fares. The appeals court upheld a Transportation Department rule that went in effect nearly a year ago that ended airlines' leeway to advertise a base airfare and show the taxes separately, often in smaller print. Airlines say the regulations violate their free-speech rights."

Falcon

Fares previously included luggage, and planes had lower fuel economy than they do now, today a plane can fly farther on a tank of fuel than they could 10, 20 years ago. I wouldn't mind paying more for more baggage but I'd be pretty pissed if I had to pay extra for 1 carry-on and 1 check-in bag. Heck I don't think more had to be paid a life-time ago when I flew with a boxed bike as well as carry-on and checked baggage. Now I'd willingly pay say $5 or $10 for the bike but not for the two bags.

Falcon

You can have phone service but not internet access. Phone lines good enough for voice may not be good enough for data transmission. I know, I used to live somewhere where after a while I lost the ability to call into my ISP. The noise on the lines to the building was just too much, and the phone company would not correct the problem.

Falcon

That shows how much you know. At least one DSL faq, DSL FAQS says that the farthest DSL can go is 29,100 feet (8,800 meters), At that distance the max speed is 128kbps though. Using ADSL loop extenders that can be extended from 6 miles to 10 miles from the central office. Satellite goes much further but it has its own problems. Like interference and latency or signal delays. Actually what may be better for some is G4 over a cellular network.

It's not always the location, sometimes it's the provider. A couple of years ago I could have gotten fiber, to the neighborhood, through Qwest. Since the change over to Centurylink though fiber is not available. I delayed in waiting too long to see if my ISP could offer fiber through Qwest.

Falcon

One, food isn't a right either. And two, life isn't essential. Oh, and you don't pay the full cost of food either. Large corporations like Cargill get billions of US taxpayer dollars a year in subsidies. The Free Markets CATO Institute published a policy analysis about Archer Daniels Midland, A Case Study In Corporate Welfare. ADM like Cargill get billions of dollars in subsidies a year. I don't know about you but I'd rather choose who I hand money to, either as a trade or a donation. Government doesn't give that option though.

Falcon

Giving government the same monopolistic freebies isn't in the public interest either.

Falcon

Blame our (great)grandparents. Had they not ratified the 16th amendment, that particular imbalance would be much more difficult.

No, I blame the ratification of the 12th Amendment. The Democratic and Republican parties love that amendment. I propose an amendment myself, one than repeals the 12th. And the electoral college. With my amendment every candidate runs for president and the voters get to rank them, something like the Condorcet methods. In my preferred method though a vote of "0", zero, counts against the candidate whereas no vote does not. It works like this, all of a candidate's votes are added up then the total is divided by the number of votes. A zero counts as a vote whereas a blank does not. I don't know how it would work in practice but it'd stir up politics.

I originally got the link from a page on CATO's website though I didn't find the page just now.

Falcon

Those who want to eat cheaply are the selfish pricks.

Falcon

Okay then, take away their monopolies. Allow competitors the ability to use the same right of way the incumbent uses. They'll then cry about having competition.

I can see it now phone/power poles straining under the load of fifty cables, or 50 poles trying to squeeze into a small space. How about 100 strands of fiber sharing underground pipes, or 100 pipes sharing the same space.

Falcon

Where does the word "Communications" make it's appearance in the Constitution of the USA?

In a letter to Albert Gallatin Thomas Jeffersonwrote “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.” James Madison, the father of the Constitution, once wrote “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents” when congress undertook to appropriate $15,000 "for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo (now Haiti) to Baltimore and Philadelphia". In the Marbury v Madison case in 1803 Justice Marshall wrote:

The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the Constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the Constitution by an ordinary act.

Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The Constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.

If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts on the part of the people to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.

Falcon

Except it's more like you having and eating your cake, and you are responsible. Where does your food come from? Farms in rural settings? If they have to pay a lot for broadband then they will raise their prices for your food. Unless you can do or make for yourself everything you want you have to pay for others to receive services and goods you get too. Personally I'd rather pay more or donate to those I choose to than have government forcibly take money from me to give to others. At the same tyme I believe in getting what I pay for as well as having a choice as to who will provide what I want to buy. However we, US taxpayers, don't have either. The federal government gave the cable and phone broadband providers $200 Billion, oops >$300 Billion to build out broadband access. We did not get it. Governments also gave these large corporations monopolies, get rid of the monopolies and let there be competition. That includes airwave monopolies.

Because it might be. Read the wiki article The New Deal and corporatism Churchill, FDR, and Mussolini wrote to each other, praised each other, and used each others ideas. For instance Mussolini praised FDR's New Deal. One part of the New Deal was the National Industrial Recovery ACT (NIRA). Former Republican President Herbert Hoover wrote Among the early Roosevelt fascist measures was the National Industry Recovery Act (NRA) of June 16, 1933 in his memoirs in 1951. So it's not just people today saying such a bill would be called socialist.

Falcon

For more irony read what George Washington said about torture: George Washington: No Torture on My Watch. He wouldn't have allowed the water boarding of German mercenaries working for the British.

Falcon

I agree about Ron Paul. However the NYT article doesn't tell the whole story. Red States Feed at Federal Trough, Blue States Supply the Feed explains how blue states pay more in federal taxes than they get back in spending whereas red states get more from the feds than they pay in taxes. For every dollar blue state New Yorkers pay in federal taxes they get back $0.81. Red state North Dakota residents receive $2.03 for every dollar they pay.

Falcon

You decry the "American sense of entitlement" and "Run Paul" one sentence later. If you meant Ron Paul then there wouldn't be an "American sense of entitlement". Nor would the US export bad laws as a President Ron Paul would try to get rid of as many victim-less crime laws as he could. The US has the world's largest prison population and the biggest set of crimes prisoners were found guilty of is drug laws. People who don't harm or steal from others are in gaol simply because they dealt in or possessed illegal drugs. By getting rid of laws that make possession and use of drugs a crime not only can the prison population be cut substantially but the people could actually boost the economy by working and paying taxes. The government's budget, what it spends would be much smaller too. And wouldn't be partially hidden, like the billions of dollars spent on stupid and unconstitutional wars. No war on liberty, which is what the war on drugs is, no Afghan war, no Iraq war. There would also be no subsidies to large corporations, like the billions of dollars in subsidies Cargill gets for exporting food, driving farmers in third world nations off their own farms because they can't compeat against US government largess.

Falcon