Like A Good Statist, Hillary Clinton Backs Obama’s Internet Takeover

02.25.2015 | News | Jerome Hudson |

Just ahead of the Federal Communications Commission’s Thursday vote on new net neutrality regulations, Hillary Clinton has endorsed Obama’s plan.

“I think that for the FCC to do what they want to do–to try to create net neutrality as the norm–they have to have a hook to hang it on,” Clinton said to Kara Swisher from Recode. “So, they’re hanging it on Title II.”

Clinton’s support of the FCC’s new regulations come as no surprise.

Why?

Because the Obama-backed regulations would give the FCC massive new authority to ensure that the internet be treated–under the direction of the federal government–like a utility, with the same slowing, stifling, bureaucratic boneheadedness as older utilities like water and transportation.

“[T]he time has come for the FCC to recognize that broadband service is of the same importance and must carry the same obligations as so many of the other vital services do,” the president said in a statement Monday. “To do that, I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act–while at the same time forbearing from rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services.”

When’s the last time the federal government argued that it only wanted to fix a problem and actually fixed the problem?

The feds will eventually do to the near-perfect and free internet what they’ve done to Amtrak. Or Healthcare. or Banking.

And this move would be a first for the FCC.

So a massive shift in regulatory responsibility like this should be openly debated in Congress.

Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon and Rep. Fred Upton, of Michigan assisted Montana GOP Senator John Thune to create draft legislation that would ban internet service providers from offering paid prioritization for faster internet access and prohibit the deliberate slowing of legal content–a legislative solution to the problem Obama claims to want to solve through bureaucratic fiat.

Obama–and now Hillary Clinton–doesn’t won’t a transparent debate about the future of the internet.

Obama doesn’t like the Walden, Upton, Thune–i.e. Congressional–plan because it would not reclassify the internet as a utility and give the feds control over it.

Jerome Hudson

Managing Editor

Jerome Hudson has written for numerous national outlets, including The Hill, National Review, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and was recognized as one of Florida’s emerging stars, having been included in the list “25 Under 30: Florida’s Rising Young Political Class.” Hudson is a Savannah, Ga. native who currently resides in Florida.

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