Bob Kerrey: “If there is a need for this law--the law is unprecedented. We are doing something extremely unprecedented. Ask the…”

“If there is a need for this law--the law is unprecedented. We are doing something extremely unprecedented. Ask the ratepayers, the taxpayers and citizens in the households. We are taking your comfortable telephone service, your comfortable cable service--you have it now and it is a monopoly, you know it is there--and subsidize rates and keep the rates down in residential. We are transitioning where those protections are not going to be there any longer. It is an unprecedented move from a monopoly to a competitive environment. I am suggesting that because of that lack of precedent, it is reasonable to look for an unprecedented way to manage, as the bill itself describes--manage from that monopoly situation to a competitive situation. I believe that it is possible and perhaps, even desirable, to put some limitations, if you want to, on what the Department of justice can do. There have been earlier suggestions on how to do that. But to give them only a consultative role, I just genuinely, sincerely believe that that risks this entire venture. It places this entire venture into the hands of corporations to say we know that you want to do the right thing, so we know you are going to allow competition. I think it is more than reasonable to expect of anybody. If I am a business--even a small business--I can talk all I want to about competition and how I favor it. But the truth of the matter is, given a choice, I would rather not have it.”