Don’t dip into the Universal Service Fund, rural telecom associations...

Don’t dip into the Universal Service Fund, rural telecom associations wrote the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. The super committee is mandated to seek $1.5 trillion in savings. USF is federally mandated, but privately funded and maintained outside the U.S. Treasury, OPASTCO, the NTCA and the Western Telecom Alliance wrote Monday. “Legal precedents and guidance definitively confirm that the USF monies do not constitute ‘public monies’ that are received for the use of the United States, but rather are private funds that are merely derived and distributed at the discretion of federal statute,” they said. “Any taking of money from the Universal Service Fund would not result in an actual cut in the federal deficit,” said OPASTCO Vice President Randy Tyree. “This sort of taking would only result in job loss and inadequate communications services."