Debbie Dingell: “Mr. Speaker, we have here a bill which has merit, limited. We have a bill which is directed at solving a problem which…”

“Mr. Speaker, we have here a bill which has merit, limited. We have a bill which is directed at solving a problem which really does not exist. We have need to address the major problem of the universal service fund, which may very well be drying up under this, which will result in significant cost increases to inner city dwellers and to residents of rural areas. It is a shame that we are not addressing the more important questions that we need to address, rather than to respond in this hasty fashion to a problem which really does not exist. The first application for this kind of relief had begun very shortly after the FCC made Internet charges no longer possible back in the 1980s. They have had many applications for this kind of thing since and have never once accorded any reality to those charges, so I think it would be better that we address real problems rather than fictitious ones.”