The Herald must love the phrase “net neutrality.” You seem to support it but do not understand it (Nov. 12). The FCC – would-be enforcer of your “net neutrality” – is in the business of regulating and taxing utilities and their customers. The FCC is not known for great innovation or fostering competition, which usually keeps prices low. This is understandable when regulating electric companies and telephone companies, which have great infrastructure costs to recover and operate as a monopoly.

The Internet is far from a monopoly. Obama wants to control it to tax it. So, it is a tax we are speaking of – a massive tax to pay for the regulators and bureaucracy this will create to be paid by us users. By some very reasonable estimates, this tax could amount to 16 percent or more. As of now, looking at my own telephone bill, the total taxes, regulatory fees and miscellaneous federal and state charges amount 26.8 percent of the total bill. We do not need more taxes on telecommunications or online service. Worse yet is the stifling of the innovation and the profit motive that created this massive unregulated web enterprise we all love – that is doing just fine without government intervention. This administration has a demonstrated appetite for tax revenues such as the Affordable Care Act; the new sales tax on all Internet purchases in the 9,600 taxing entities in this country ­– a bill promoted by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. – is set to take effect on Dec. 11, but for the intervention of Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, whose office wants to continue this exemption from sales tax on your online purchases and make it permanent. Merry Christmas!

So it appears to me the Herald editorial board has unwittingly taken a position for a major government overreach, which will likely hurt consumers – even though the editorial admits to some of the proposal’s drawbacks without acknowledging the whole story. I doubt this attempt to regulate the Internet will succeed; the courts have already signaled their reluctance to interfere.

Jim Dolan

Durango