One of the great outcomes of the Internet and smartphone revolution is that access to these communication technologies has rapidly spread to nearly every office building, home, and school in America.

Technology that was the preserve of the ultra-rich a generation ago is now ubiquitous and accessible to nearly all the poorest Americans, and even more Americans. It is a miracle of sectoral innovation and a magic of the free enterprise system. The poorest people in Africa's most remote villages have smartphones.

Consider the incredible speed of adoption. By 2000, half of Americans had Internet access at home. Now he's at 92%. Currently, 19 out of 20 households use a smartphone to access the internet at home. Nearly 9 out of 10 homes have broadband access.

No other technology – automobiles, radio, television, cable television, air conditioning – has become so quickly, affordable and universally available to the masses. (Related: Stephen Moore: Fantasy sports leagues are in trouble)

Does this sound like a market that needs government support?

If you answered yes, you probably believe that Al Gore invented the Internet.

This didn't happen by chance. That was partly due to wise public policy decisions made years ago. Former Congressman Chris Cox, who authored the first bipartisan legislation to promote Internet adoption in the 1990s, describes a successful strategy: “We achieved this rapid adoption by keeping the Internet free from regulation and litigation.” Bill Clinton, then president, also deserves credit.

But now the Biden administration is overseeing the internet on behalf of the Federal Communications Commission, which has never seen an industry it doesn't want regulated and controlled. They are doing this in the name of “preventing digital discrimination.”

This is a ridiculous claim since almost all blacks and Hispanics now have the internet and cell phones.

But to solve a hypothetical problem, Biden passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 with a Democratic Congress. In this absurd bill, he earmarked $65 billion to expand access to high-speed internet, even though almost everyone already had high-speed internet.

But when government regulators get involved in an industry, they find ways to strangle it, not improve it. A good example is the so-called net neutrality law, which socialized broadband connectivity. The only effect of slow adoption was that when the Trump administration repealed these rules, households improved and had access to faster download capabilities.

Biden and Congressional Democrats had no choice but to play the race card. The new law directed the FCC to ensure that billions of dollars in federal spending “promotes equal access” to the internet.

So FCC lawyers chose a standard known as “disparate influence.” This means that if you can always find a minority area that doesn't have the same internet access as high-income areas, you can sue the carriers. You can almost hear the trial lawyers drooling.

The accuser does not even have to prove intent to discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity. The threat of these lawsuits will hinder rather than expand access to the Internet.

As an example of the unfairness of this policy, if a telecommunications provider offers a new service but not enough members of a protected group sign up for that service, the FCC can impose millions of dollars in fines and You may request modifications to the Service. inequality.

However, this is an expedition to prevent the government from showing enough discrimination to warrant punishment. Don't just take my word for it. The FCC openly admits in its document that 235 pages of filing In November, it announced that it found “little to no evidence” of “intentional discrimination by industry participants.” And it found no evidence that discrimination “contributes to disparities in access to broadband Internet services across the United States.”

This would be like the government suing electronics stores for not selling enough televisions to blacks and Hispanics.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said Biden's FCC would be given the power to second-guess all aspects of internet service provider operations, from network maintenance and installation to day-to-day operations such as pricing and marketing. It warns that

In other words, Democrats want to turn the internet into a regulated utility that oversees “access, content, and price.” This would work similarly to aviation regulations in the 1970s and his healthcare regulations in the 2000s. Both raised consumer prices and restricted access.

Don't be surprised if some carriers decide it's not worth the threat of litigation or regulatory penalties and choose not to participate in the expansion of Internet and broadband access. And in that case, the poor and minorities would have real reason to complain. This always happens when governments try to fix things that don't need to be fixed.

Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and co-founder of the Unleash Prosperity Committee. His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government is Undermining Our Economy.”

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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