FCC 'Has Run Its Course' and Should Be Disbanded: AEI's Jamison
The FCC "has become a convenient political tool [that] too often abandons its independence," and Chairman Brendan Carr should front efforts to dismantle it, wrote Mark Jamison, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. The reasons it was created in 1934 "have disappeared," he said Friday, including regulation of the old Bell telephone monopoly and oversight of public airwaves. The agency's increased politicization is hurting investment, Jamison argued. Meanwhile, the Bell monopoly no longer exists, and many of the commission's consumer protection and equipment authorization functions could be done by other agencies, he said, adding that many of its jobs already overlap with other federal departments.
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The two functions "worth keeping" don't require the FCC, as spectrum management could "be run by a more scientific and technically minded agency, with narrow, clearly defined powers insulating the work from lobbying," Jamison wrote. As for universal service subsidies, "states have shown they are better equipped to handle [broadband subsidies] than the federal government," he said. "The FCC has run its course."