Joe Scarborough: “If there is, it is because there was a backroom deal between Vice President Gore and a bureaucrat for the FCC. Mr.…”

“If there is, it is because there was a backroom deal between Vice President Gore and a bureaucrat for the FCC. Mr. Speaker, there should not be confusion, but there may be because of the tax increase on the phone bill of all Americans which was passed on to them secretly by the Vice President and bureaucrats and not by elected officials in this Chamber. It certainly violates all notions of fair play and constitutional limits that are passed on the Federal Government. There may be confusion because the FCC used heavy-handed tactics to try and stop phone companies from telling their consumers that a 5 percent tax had been passed on to every one of their phone bills secretly. Certainly, that does add confusion. Now, what the Gore tax does is through the telecommunications bill it misinterprets, or interprets very loosely, a provision that they believe allows the FCC to demand that telecommunication companies increase taxes on phone bills by 5 percent and then passes that money on to a new Federal bureaucracy program.”