Ajit Pai killed Net Neutrality and Trump gave away a huge tax break; Verizon got billions and killed 10,000 jobs
When Trump's FCC Chairman Ajit Pai killed Net Neutrality (by illegally ignoring legitimate comments in support of it in favor of millions of anti-Net Neutrality comments sent by identity-stealing bots), he promised that it would spur growth in the telcoms sector -- and of course, he should know, because he used to be a Verizon exec. Verizon agreed: they objected to Obama-era Neutrality orders by saying the measures would "severely curtail job growth."
Then Trump handed out trillions in tax-breaks for the super rich and giant corporations, insisting that this would spur job growth and investment.
Alas, reality has a well-known left-wing bias.
Verizon has responded to this government largesse by killing 10,000 jobs, 7% of its workforce, to "optimize growth opportunities" and "better serve customers with more agility, speed and flexibility."
The cuts are allegedly "voluntary," but employees report that their managers are finding pretenses to write them up and then forcing them to accept the "voluntary" severance.
Verizon's take home from Trump is large: the company saved $4 billion in 2018 alone, and will reap a further $17 billion off its deferred taxes.
When contacted, Verizon denied there was any disconnect between the company's promises and its actual delivery.
"Through the first 3 quarters of 2018, the company has reduced debt by $4.2 billion, and made discretionary contributions of $1.7 billion to employee benefit programs," Verizon told Motherboard. "We've also returned $7.3 billion to shareowners in dividends, and continued to invest heavily in our networks."
But former FCC lawyer Gig Sohn says the cycle of giving telecom giants tens of billions in subsidies, tax breaks and regulatory favors-then getting notably less or nothing at all in return-is a game we've been playing in the United States for the better part of a generation.
Verizon Trims 10,000 Employees Despite Billions in Tax Cuts and Government Favors [Karl Bode/Motherboard]
(Image: Michael Rivera, CC-BY-SA)
