Welcome to This Week in Waste, a series by Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) that highlights how taxpayer dollars are being wasted in the federal, state, and local levels of government and effort to fight back against this spendthrift behavior. Missouri Senate Rejects Stadium Funding Bill In the final days of their session, the Missouri […]
Senate Votes to Repeal Taxpayer Funded Wi-Fi Hotspots for Home Use
Citizens Against Government Waste’s (CAGW) comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding the “Delete, Delete, Delete” proceeding included the repeal of a regulation that expanded the use of the E-Rate program under the Universal Service Fund (USF) to allows tax dollars to be used for the installation of Wi-Fi hotspots in school buses. The […]
Government-Owned Networks Are Still A Bad Idea
Citizens Against Government Waste has long been concerned about wasteful spending on government-owned networks (GONs) that provide services that duplicate private sector providers in the same communities. This concern has heightened since the enactment of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in 2021, which allocated $42.5 billion for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment […]
This Week in Waste – May 2, 2025
Welcome to This Week in Waste, a series by Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) that highlights how taxpayer dollars are being wasted in the federal, state, and local levels of government, and efforts to fight back against this spendthrift behavior. President Trump’s Budget Proposal Cuts Hundreds of Billions in Spending President Trump sent his […]
FCC is Going to be Busy with Delete, Delete, Delete
Reducing regulations, especially after the massive expansion in the size and scope of the federal government during the Biden administration, will increase investment and stimulate the economy. That is one of the reasons President Trump signed an executive order (EO) on January 31, 2025, to cut 10 regulations for every new regulation, and another EO […]
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Overturns the FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules
Federal Appeals Court correctly finds the FCC had no authority to impose new net neutrality rules.
133 Broadband Programs May Be 132 More Than Necessary
It is time to review the 133 broadband programs across 15 federal agencies with an eye toward consolidation.
Greater Accountability Ahead for BEAD and USF Funding Remains Uncertain
Issues with BEAD and USF must be resolved by the new Congress and Trump administration.
Franchise Fees Raise Barriers to Broadband
Courts have held the line against franchise fee abuse. The FCC can protect consumers by ending the practice once and for all.
The Hidden Taxes on Internet Service
The imposition of state and local taxes on accessing and using the internet was supposed to be resolved, yet local governments continue to attempt to subvert this prohibition. The effort to prevent these taxes from being adopted began when the Internet Tax Freedom Act of 1998 (ITFA) established a moratorium on state and local internet access taxes, “bit taxes” levied on the amount of data streamed, and taxes on specific services such as email or messaging. ITFA also prohibited discriminatory transaction taxes on e-commerce vendors and their customers which would […]








