D.C. Memo: Gorsuch Calls USF 'Straight Up Tax' Without Limits; Kagan Dissents

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SCOTUS: After two-and-a-half hours of tedious legal jousting yesterday over the constitutionality of the FCC’s Universal Service Fund, some came away confident that the USF would survive and some that it would not. On one issue there was complete unanimity: Justice Neil Gorsuch is not a Starlink subscriber. Testing the scope of the FCC’s authority to expand USF spending without much in the way of limits, Gorsuch asked acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris, “How about everybody gets a Starlink account?” Harris replied, “I’m not saying everyone gets a Starlink account.” Gorsuch tried again. “Sounds like it. It’s a pretty good deal – I’d like one.” The USF’s $8.1 billion annual budget is largely derived from fees on phone bills. The 5th Circuit found the USF’s funding mechanism to be an unconstitutional delegation of Congressional taxing authority to the FCC and the Universal Service Administrative Co., which runs the USF for the FCC. “This is just a straight up tax without any numerical limit, any cap, any rate. We’ve never approved something like that before,” Gorsuch said. (More after paywall.)