Something new from the government: A spectrum fee

President Obama, promising to leave no stone unturned, is proposing to tax wireless carriers as much as $550 million per year for the right to hold a spectrum license. Although the fee-per-carrier would raise $50 million this year, it would eventually rise to $500 million per carrier per year within a decade. And it may wind up increasing the bill for individuals, according to some analysts.

The new fees, outlined in Obama's budget plans announced on Feb. 26, would generate $4.8 billion over the next 10 years and would be used to deal with the ballooning budget deficit.

"We will need to begin bringing down the budget deficit to avoid a fiscal crisis in the future. So as we come out of the recession, and consistent with the President's campaign proposals, the budget combines spending reductions and revenue increases," OMB Director Peter Orzag stated on the OMB blog. "The roughly $2 trillion in deficit reduction that the budget contains for the next decade is split evenly between spending reductions (of roughly $1 trillion) and revenue increases (of roughly $1 trillion)."

No word yet from the nation's biggest carriers but you can sure expect a big battle over this one.

For more about taxing spectrum use:
- check out this eWeek.com article

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