The FCC does do one thing which can be seen as essential: allocate frequencies.

If not, you simply wouldn't be heard on the air.

Almost everything is more complicated than it seems on first glance.

Well, say KDKA in Pittsburgh decides they don't have enough coverage, and they install a 200KW RF transmitter.

Who determines whether that installation is legal?

"Legality", in this case, covers the quality of the RF transmission as well as the output. It's not just about the coverage area and the money a commercial broadcaster can get from the audience. This is so the employees are not fried by the RF - and your neighbor's pacemaker doesn't die, either.
A hobbyist decides to transmit a couple KW from a homebuilt device and interferes with your airport's Instrument Landing System. Hmm.

Look at your microwave, your wireless phone, your iBook. All of a sudden, there are no standards being enforced, and you think they will still work?

Who do you think will step up - with interstate authority - to replace the FCC?

Rad has a valid point.

Some things need some regulation at the federal level -- but within reason. The FCC should be consigning frequencies and wattage, but should have no say over content.

If someone wanted to set up an over the air broadcast of all porno, all the time -- they should be allowed to.

That is why I think we will always need a small compact EPA. After the Cuyahoga River burned you need someone watching out for it. And what if had been the Mississippi. Granted you can sue X for polluting your property -- but to work it through the court system takes time. And when it involves large multi-state, multi-nationals -- it takes forever.

The issue is mission creep.

Just roll the FCC back to the original intent of the Communications Act of 1934. Add a few tweaks to ensure that they handle all frequencies (if they didn't already), and keep some of the modifications for ensuring communications (like PRB-1). The whole thing came about at the dawn of the radio age to prevent competing stations across state lines from using the same frequencies to interfere, sometimes intentionally.

Get rid of all content control rules, and access rules and all that shit.

Yes, that means there wouldn't be any legal restrictions on sex in the soaps. But guess what - the advertisers wouldn't want to be associated with that stuff, and those programs would die anyhow. Which is fine - let them go on cable and satellite.

The FCC should be limited to the technical rules and regulations intended to promote communication, and nothing to do with the content thereof. Part 15 and Part 68 come to mind.

Yes, I realize that those parts came long after 1934. But as Jim posted while I was typing: mission creep.

If you look at some of it, you start to see "equal opportunity" popping up. What? That doesn't belong there. My amateur radio (47 CFR 97) doesn't give a rat's ass what color I am. Nor does the testing to get such a license. And there's nothing stopping a minority from opening a paging company, but right there in Part 90 there's an "equal employment opportunity" clause.

Technical merits only, please. The FCC needs to care if there is interference with licensed communications. They don't have to care what color the person making the interference is.

Rad, I think Brian has it... we do need an FCC to allocate frequencies and watch out for interference. I personally do not trust the tort system to do these functions. Also, some part of the government needs to be the U.S. interface to the ITU or whatever it's called now, the international body that manages frequency use worldwide.

However, frequency management I suspect is only a small part of the current FCC. Get rid of the content-regulation functions. And the FCC should have nothing whatsoever to do with any form of communication that doesn't involve use of radio frequencies. That's outside of its charter and Congress should never have allocated budget for it.

Further, a large FCC constitutes an inherent threat to the First Amendment. Remember the Fairness Doctrine?

BTW, everyone should go read the Reason article that Amy linked to. There's a lot more ideas in it. Not sure I agree with all of them, but there is quite a bit of good there. Here's some of my personal favorites:

* Eliminate the Education Department, lock stock and barrel. The only conceivable federal role in education might be drafting of minimum national standards, and that can be done by a sub-Cabinet-level department.
* Eliminate the Department of Veteran's Affairs and fold its functions into HHS.
* Eliminate the Energy Department. All of its functions can go in the dumpster except nuclear weapons R&D (hand to the Pentagon) and nuclear power regulation (branch off the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as an independent agency a la the FAA). Turn over any R&D functions deemed essential for national security to the National Science Foundation and/or ARPA.
* Eliminate the Labor Department. Turn over its enforcement functions to Justice; de-fund all of the union promotion functions.
* Eliminate the Agriculture Department and all ag subsidies and price controls. Turn over the regulator functions either to the states, or if a federal role is needed, to the FDA.
* Eliminate the BATF and fold its functions into Justice or the FBI.

* Eliminate the Department of Veteran's Affairs and fold its functions into HHS.

Hell no.

Vetreans get shit care in comparison to what they were promised. You roll that into a larger buracracy and it will only get worse

"All of its functions can go in the dumpster except nuclear weapons R&D (hand to the Pentagon) and nuclear power regulation (branch off the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as an independent agency a la the FAA)."

Ooops.

You just gave custody of the nuclear weapons stockpile to the military.

SRS (see srs.gov) is in civilian hands, to prevent Pandora from opening that particular can of whupass and starting something you can't back down from.

Glad to see such unquestioning trust in military.

Although I suggest that they know a hell of a lot more about the costs of battle than a community organizer.

Eliminate the Department of Veteran's Affairs and fold its functions into HHS.

Hell no.

Heh. And this is why government won't get smaller: everyone has a sacred cow, and pitch a fit if it gets gored.

Nuke are already in the hands of the military.

If I recall correctly submarine commanders are no longer required to get a second set of launch codes from any military or civilian authority not on the sub.

I R A Darth Aggie I'll admit I am a veteran and therefore not impartial.

But the way most VA facilites are run makes third world hospitals look like 5 Star resorts.

Its one thing to cut out services that are provided by multipule entites. Its one thing to scale back welafre programs the have long become far more expansive then they were ever meant to be.

But VA benifts are neither of those. The VA is there to provide support and heathcare to the retired military personel for wounds and injuries they recieved while defending you from foriegn attacks.

If you want to cut the VA and the help it provides you are going to have to be up front and tell incoming recruit that should they be injured the governemnt and citizens they are sacrificing themselves for will not under any circumstances help pay for medical treatment.

What do you suppose that will do to recuiting?

The VA is insurance, cops get it(paid for by the government), firefighters get it(paid for by the government), hell even IRS agents get it(paid for by the government), when then do you feel that soldiers should not get it?

"Nuke are already in the hands of the military.

If I recall correctly submarine commanders are no longer required to get a second set of launch codes from any military or civilian authority not on the sub."

Former IC1(SS)(Nuke) Radwaste here... I served on the James Madison and the Batfish. They never have had to do that. Launch codes go to sea with the captain. It takes two keys. Two are required to launch. The launch can be stopped by about twenty people at different points on the boat, although that would involve violating orders.

At one point there was a spare set of keys on board, held by an agent unknown to the crew, to ensure that the launch could be made even if the officers balked and discarded the originals. That may be the case now - by definition, I can't tell.

The production of Special Nuclear Material is completely civilian, and launch authority is civilian. Weapons and materials are doled out by civilian authority.

So this is another thing to think long and hard about.

Ag should be a function of USDA. Otherwise it's redundant. Are we sure it's not a subsidiary of USDA?

I'm on board with the elimination of subsidies and tariffs. Let the market decide prices, and they'll stop growing so much fucking corn.

And BATF should be a convenience store, not a government office.

Also - repeal the 16th amendment and the IRS just goes away. Let the federal government tax the states, and let the states tax us. It's easier for us to control that way. Of course, that would necessitate the repeal of the 17th amendment too. Which I'm cool with.

The VA is a special case. It needs to be seriously revamped and ass must be kicked. First, it should only be available to veterans (whether they saw a warzone or not) and the care should be the best available. These people offered to put their bodies and lives on the line, and we owe them for that.

luj, I am well aware of the (non-)quality of treatment that veterans get. However, I am also aware that promoting the VA to Cabinet-level didn't do a damn thing to make it any better; it only made it more expensive to the taxpayer. Worst of all possible worlds. To me, it follows that it can't possibly get worse if VA is demoted and placed under another Cabinet-level department, the way it used to be.

Hey look, I'll throw out one of my own sacred cows: NASA. A lot of my career has depended one way or the other on the Space Shuttle program. It was great at the time. However, I recognize that it's time to turn over Earth-to-LEO human transportation to private companies and get NASA out of that business. Further, I think at this point the idea that NASA must be strictly separated from the military -- Eisenhower's concept -- should be re-visited. It may be that NASA should be combined with or folded into ARPA in some fashion.

One major thing - I don't know if there is actually some legislation which made it "legal" for Regulatory Agencies to make "regulations" that have the force of law, or if Congress just decided that it was so. If there is legislation, then it needs to be repealed. If not, then we need some that will force all regulations to be specifically put to a vote in Congress, so that every one of them has their name attached to it.

If you say that would take up all of their time, so much the better.

Let's eliminate the IRS. Institute a flat tax for everyone ... absolutely no deductions or loop-holes. The tax form for everyone becomes a 3X5 card with four lines. 1) income earned, 2) multiply flat tax rate = tax owed, 3) tax paid, 4) amount of tax owed or refunded. Farm out the administration to a private company.