Zoltan, Sorry this is the post I wanted to send to you>
Gore should come up with some better ideas
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
I enjoyed your March 10 editorial, "Gore hotline
not a hot idea." I have just received my phone bill
with a 41-cent per month increase for Milwaukee
County number portability surcharge.
When I called to protest this increase, I was informed that it is a mandatory
charge imposed by the Federal Communications Commission to enable me
to keep my phone number if I should move. I have no intention of moving
and, if I should, I could care less if my number was changed, as it has been
on past moves. Now, I must pay $4.93 per year for this privilege.
[ AT&T ] has also recently added a carrier line charge of 93 cents per month
and a universal connectivity charge of 85 cents per month. When I called to
protest these increases, I was told they were mandated by the FCC and
passed on to the customer. One of these has to do with helping the poor pay
their bills; the other I didn't make any sense of at all. I explained that, being
on a meager pension, I am among the poor to no avail.
Now, with Vice President Al Gore's new traffic hotline, unfunded and
regulated by the FCC, how much more will the phone bill increase? As the
editorial suggested doing, I am honking to show it has the ring of a campaign
gimmick!
Let us also remember that Gore, the great environmentalist, proposed to do
away with the gasoline engine in 25 years, only one of many of his pollution
dreams. I believe that he had better stop the gimmickry and come up with
some solid, good ideas.
Erwin K. Benz
Milwaukee
(Copyright 1999)
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