ATR Statement on Reports that FCC will seek to impose so-called Net Neutrality Regulations on the Internet by Punishing Comcast for their Management Protocols
Would give major victory to advocates of regulatory regime, be a blow to free-market principles.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform, released the following statement based upon a report in the Wall Street Journal that the FCC is on the verge of imposing regulations on Internet Service Providers for the first time and ending the free-market principles that have made the Internet the force it is today.
“The Federal Communications Commission’s decision to open the floodgates of regulation on the Internet is very disappointing. It is mind-boggling that a commission with a Republican majority would do the bidding of left-wing pressure groups and impose a socialist regulatory regime on the last bastion of true free-market principles,” Norquist said. “And it is a terrible disappointment that the FCC has decided to ignore the vast, unprecedented achievement of free-markets and free minds that the unregulated Internet represents, instead retreating to the failed, 1930s-era policies of regulated utilities. The reality is that we cannot regulate the Internet into innovating, expanding, or attracting new investment. It has never worked in any area of the economy and it will not work here. This decision will be looked upon with the sadness of what could have been.”