Random Walk

Everyone knows “entitlements” are bankrupting the country, so naturally the Clinton Administration is busy looking for new things that we can all be entitled to.

But first the good news. The Administration announced last month that it is ready to “support removal, over time and under appropriate conditions, of judicial and legislative restrictions on all types of telecommunications companies: cable, telephone, utilities, television, and satellite.” It’s about time—for years, I’ve been urging my friends in Congress to do this. The technological capacity of this industry is already so many light years ahead of the barnacle-encrusted FCC that further regulatory dabbling is an exercise in absolute futility. Not so long ago FCC bureaucrats were predicting there would be 1 million cellular telephones in the U.S. by the year 2000. There are already 13 million. Uncle Sam willing, there will be closer to 100 million by 2000.

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Everyone knows “entitlements” are bankrupting the country, so naturally the Clinton Administration is busy looking for new things that we can all be entitled to.

But first the good news. The Administration announced last month that it is ready to “support removal, over time and under appropriate conditions, of judicial and legislative restrictions on all types of telecommunications companies: cable, telephone, utilities, television, and satellite.” It’s about time—for years, I’ve been urging my friends in Congress to do this. The technological capacity of this industry is already so many light years ahead of the barnacle-encrusted FCC that further regulatory dabbling is an exercise in absolute futility. Not so long ago FCC bureaucrats were predicting there would be 1 million cellular telephones in the U.S. by the year 2000. There are already 13 million. Uncle Sam willing, there will be closer to 100 million by 2000.