COMMENTARY: One government program for GOP to abolish

Milton Friedman famously wrote “nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” Perhaps nowhere is his wisdom more obvious than with the Universal Service Fund, which, despite having vastly outlasted its intended purpose, some lawmakers are militantly intent on expanding rather than phasing out.

The fund is better known to us as one of several seemingly random fees tacked onto our phone bills each month. When the underlying framework was created by FDR in 1934, its purpose was to collect contributions from users of long-distance phone lines to build phone lines to places that didn’t have them yet. After that goal was accomplished, it was repurposed to subsidize broadband for consumers in high-cost areas and in schools and libraries.

Flash forward to 2026. Now that the long-distance phone bills taxed to pay for it have dwindled, it has gone from a pot of money in need of somewhere to spend, to a spending program in need of a new pot of money as the contribution factor on a shrinking tax base zooms unsustainably upward.

Some members of Congress are suggesting taxing broadband providers or big tech companies to keep it going. A much better idea would be to declare victory on universal service and shut it down.

The idea that a repurposed Universal Service Fund is needed to subsidize broadband is laughable because there are already some 100 federal programs housed within 15 federal agencies where funding can or must be used to expand internet access. The Government Accountability Office noted that the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program alone “provides approximately $42 billion to expand broadband access in all states and territories.”

There is more money for broadband subsidies in Washington now than anybody knows what to do with, and less need than ever before as SpaceX and Amazon compete to provide high-speed satellite access to the handful of remote locations that are still not online.

For the vanishingly small number of people who remain underserved despite 100 federal programs at their disposal, providing access is not simply a matter of giving the government more money. What we have learned from such efforts historically is that when lawmakers claim they need more funding to expand rural broadband, the money is too often surreptitiously diverted to communities without a need for basic service.

Rather than providing access to an underserved area, these federal dollars have been used to improve broadband speeds in communities that already have internet access — and may not even be rural in the slightest — resulting in the taxpayers essentially paying for a duplicative service or “overbuilding.”

No amount of federal money ever seems to be enough. Yet Congress — yes, even Republicans, who should know better and have voted against internet taxation before — are giving consideration to expanding the Universal Service Fund. The FCC’s own analysis has calculated that proposed reforms could add as much as $17.96 a month to consumer bills. That is tantamount to a tax hike of more than $215 per year per user to fund a program that shouldn’t exist in the first place.

If the outcomes of this midterm election cycle are to be dictated by who holds the better path on affordability, both parties need to get real on this issue.

If Congress can’t eliminate a program as blatantly unnecessary as the Universal Service Fund, what faith can anyone have that they can cut any spending at all?

Jon Decker is the executive director of American Commitment and a senior fellow at the Parkview Institute.