Wisconsin legislators should reject a proposal to charge resident...

The proposal appears in a state budget being considered this week. More than 4 million Wisconsin residents use wireless services, paying more than 11 percent on average in combined monthly taxes, fees and surcharges, the group said. The state universal service fund has no bearing on wireless service, it said. “The state USF funds currently collected from Wisconsin’s consumers are not being used for their original intended purpose, which was to pay for enhancing consumer telecommunications systems in rural and underserved areas,” it added. “This new USF hike would be on top of a blatant disregard to a promise made previously to wireless consumers by the state, such as an old E9-1-1 fee that had a $20 million surplus - and that was supposed to be refunded to Wisconsin consumers in $5.00 increments - will in fact not be refunded. Instead, that money was diverted by the state to be used for general revenue purposes.” The group also slammed a proposed 75-cent fee to be charged on landline and mobile service “to pay for so-called ‘police and fire protection services,’ which could also simply be used to fill a revenue hole in the general budget.” The group calculates that the new fees would add $1.31 per month to wireless phone bills, a total cost to wireless consumers exceeding $60 million a year. “Wisconsinite cell phone users are being asked once again to bear more than their fair share, with an excessive 32% total combined increase in new fees on their monthly bills,” said Brian Johnston, the group’s communications director. “Wisconsin should be seeking to eliminate regressive taxes on communication services at this time, in order to relieve consumers of excessive tax burdens rather than expanding bad policy to wireless services.” State Senate Republican leader Scott Fitzgerald has attacked the budget as pork-riddled and Gov. Jim Doyle and his fellow Democrats as anti-consumer. “Our state is struggling to dig out of a recession, yet Gov. Doyle and legislative Democrats seem to think that raising $3 billion in taxes and fees will help solve the problem?” he asked. “It goes against common sense.”