FCC fees for amateur radio - updates on implementation

Personally, I’d like to see the fee set at $50 for new/renewal license, and call changes. There are way too many people changing their call way too often. Looking at profiles on here, there are people that have had 3, 4, 5, plus calls issued in less than 5 years. All it does is block others from potentially getting those calls for 2 years.

 

In 2021 $374 Million dollars of federally collected U.S. tax dollars were appropriated for FCC activities (including infrastructure and enforcement).
$200.73 Million of that was paid out as salary alone, leaving $173 Million to be used to serve the Amateur Radio Community. Not even close to the lion's share.
Of the 1,492 FCC employees a whopping 623 FCC employees make between $155,000-$170,000/annual salary. Source: Federal Communications Commission Salary Statistics (federalpay.org)

For 2022 the FCC will receive an additional $14 Million totaling $388 Million. Source: Appropriations Committee Releases Fiscal Year 2022 Financial Services and General Government Funding Bill | House Committee on Appropriations
But with $388 Million, who knows how they'll ever provide us with the infrastructure and enforcement needed...
I attached the sources of information I cited so other financially interested individuals may review the rest of the $29.1 Billion American tax dollars appropriated.

 

I like it when PEOPLE capitalize certain WORDS, as if to express SHOCK and EXASPERATION! They must be LOOSING their MINDS, or something?

 

Take a DEEP BREATH and relax.

 

Why do people continue to act like the $35 fee is supposed to go to enforcement or that it somehow goes to salaries? It doesn't and wasn't ever said it would.

 

Simple. And we don't think, we know. As has been stated from the beginning when we first were told about the fee (and where the study came up with the fee amount after Congress instructed them to determine one): It goes to cover the cost of processing the applications, etc. Not to salaries. Not to enforcement. To the cost of processing the paperwork/files/license system.

 

It goes back to congress to reimburse the apportioned funds they allot to the FCC from every years budget. In other words they have to pay back congress, and if some how the FCC collects more than they were apportioned, the overage goes to ...... you guessed it, congress. Congress says all your money belongs to us.

 

And it doesn't even stay at the FCC. It goes from being collected by the FCC to the national treasury, to be used by all facets of the federal government.

 

The mindless repetitive dribble continues.

 

Yup. Dig up the bones of that long ago dead horse and beat them yet again.

You've already taken this thread off-topic and I don't want to derail it even further, but the code test isn't coming back and it wouldn't fix anything if it did. GET OVER IT!

 

I thought hams were the cheapest part of the hobby.

 

I was in a HRO recently and saw what some of the staff ate when it arrived. A Ham may be cheap, but not when it came to that restaurant tab.

 

Because some folks don't understand how FCC is funded, nor why the fees are being imposed.

And because there's a widespread feeling that FCC doesn't do nearly enough effective enforcement.

 

And it does.

FCC exists because of a law passed by The Congress and signed by the president. So The Congress can decide how the FCC will be funded, how it will collect fees, etc.

The law can be challenged in court, if someone wants to go that way.

 

This isn't a tax. It's a fee for a particular service - the FCC processing your license application.

FCC has always had the power to charge fees for amateur licenses. And for about 12 years (early 1964 to the end of 1976), they did.

Since then, we hams have gotten a free ride, paid for by the taxpayers. Simple as that.

But then The Congress passed a law that REQUIRES FCC to charge license fees. FCC has no choice.

The plural of fee is fees.
The possessive of fee is fee's.

The fees have nothing to do with enforcement nor license requirements.

[Quote,]
The bands wont improve just like I said when they dropped the code and made it easier to get a license. May as well just give them a license.....Bring back the code![/QUOTE]

The code hasn't gone anywhere. What went away was the code TEST. And it's not coming back. Get used to it.

Way back in 1990, FCC created "medical waivers", which effectively reduced the code test speed for all licenses to 5 wpm. All you needed was a form letter from any MD or DO.

Ten years later, in 2000, FCC dropped all but the 5 wpm test completely.

Seven years later, in 2007, FCC dropped the 5 wpm test.

That was 14 years ago. And yet people are still using code on the air, still learning it, still improving their skills, test or no test.

That's what matters.