Cruz: Don’t Believe ‘If You Like Your Internet, You Can Keep Your Internet’

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) urged members of the public not to believe promises of “if you like your Internet, you can keep your Internet” in a speech on Thursday.

Cruz declared “don’t mess with the Internet.” And asked “which has greater innovation, the United States Post Office or Facebook and Twitter? Which has greater innovation, taxi commissions in local cities or Lyft and Uber? Every time you put unelected bureaucrats in charge of a market, they stifle innovation and what they also do is they favor the big boys. If you think for a minute that the FCC is going to listen to small start-ups, than you’re ignoring the history of every other instance of regulation.”

He continued, “If the FCC turns the Internet into a regulated public utility, the innovation, the creativity that has characterized the Internet from its dawn, will inevitably be stifled. Now Title II by the way, gives all sorts of authority to regulate pricing and terms of service, and one of the implications if the Internet is regulated under Title II is 11 billion dollars a year in new taxes…I would encourage each of you, do not accept the promise of Washington politicians who are telling all of us, ‘if you like your Internet, you can keep your Internet.’ That promise cannot be trusted, and I hope that we all stand together defending freedom on the Internet in every respect.”

Cruz also added “here’s where the FCC says, ‘no don’t worry, we won’t collect those taxes, we’re going to exercise forbearance,’ I don’t know if you’ve heard the ancient fable about the frog who gives the scorpion a ride across the river, and half way across the river the scorpion stabs the frog and they both sink under the water and as they’re going under, the frog says, ‘why, now we both will die’, and the scorpion tells the frog, ‘because it is my nature.’ I promise you, it is the nature of the government regulators, if they have it, they will use it, 100 percent of the time, it will grow, the taxes will come.”

(h/t The Right Scoop)

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