Who’s the Biggest Culprit When It Comes to ‘Junk Fees’?

President Biden is launching a war on “junk fees,” which he defines as any payments on everything from airlines and hotel rooms to credit cards. Expect, however, nickel-and-diming by the federal government to escape notice as it did in his State of the Union address.In his speech, Mr. Biden proposed the Junk Fee Prevention Act to end what he called “hidden surcharges too many businesses use to make you pay more.” The word “junk” to demonize something harkens back to the 1970s, when they took it upon themselves to rebrand fast-food as “junk food.”In 1977, President Reagan gave one of the radio addresses he wrote and delivered about “so-called ‘junk food’ in schools.” He said while he’d “help in a program to educate and convince all of us” about good nutrition, branding something as “junk” didn’t render it evil.“When, if ever,” Reagan asked, “will do-gooders, busybodies, and bureaucrats learn that human beings don’t like being regimented, even when they’re told it’s for their own good?” This was the same man who, during Mr. Biden’s 1988 run for president, described him as a “smooth but pure demagogue — out to save America from the Reagan Doctrine.”Half a century later, Mr. Biden is again casting himself as America’s savior, although with none of the smoothness Reagan observed — referring at one point to a “paycheck” as a “flaysheck” in remarks — but the demagoguery remained in full force.Mr. Biden said, “I grew up in a family where when the price of gasoline went up, it was a conversation at the breakfast table,” although this has been proven false. “When Biden was growing up,” RealClear Markets wrote in a fact-check, “the price of gasoline was flat. And it was cheap.”The federal gasoline tax is more than 18 cents per gallon hidden in the price posted at the pump, yet Mr. Biden doesn’t call this a “junk fee,” because the money goes to a government that promises to spend it on roadwork, not to the companies that use it for such frivolous purposes as going to get oil and refining it into fuel.Mr. Biden spoke to families “finding out you have to pay a $50 processing fee for a hotel room that you’re trying to book,” however, he made no mention of the sticker shock those same families find when paying their bill and learning the government has tacked on additional costs.At Washington D.C., visitors must pay a hotel tax of 15.95 percent to the federal district. Park your car? That’s an 18 percent tax. Go to the theater? Six percent. Take in a Capitals or Nationals game? You’ll cough up 10.25 percent.In 1898, to fund the Spanish-American War, the government imposed a fee of three percent on long-distance phone service. Mr. Biden made no move to remove this junk tax at any time during 40 years in the Senate; it only ended when the Republican Congress repealed it in 2006.The president listed airline charges among the “junk fees,” but said nothing about the federal air transportation taxes on airline tickets, the “segment fee” of $4 each way, or the September 11 Security Fee of $5.60 that the families he cites must pay.Since Mr. Biden is concerned about families on planes, what about the application and execution fees for passport applications? Most student loans have fees, too. These are much on Mr. Biden’s mind and the federal government runs the program, so why not throw out that “junk”?These hidden charges, Mr. Biden may argue, are required for the government to recoup costs — the same argument companies would make for late fees on credit cards, cancellation fees from hotels that find their rooms vacant, and airlines which must pay for shipping baggage.One man’s junk fee is another man’s covering operating costs. Citizens can avoid those in the private sector by not purchasing a given good or service, but there is no escape from the federal government — and since that’s the entity Mr. Biden was elected to lead, he might spare a thought for cleaning up that junk first.

Who’s the Biggest Culprit When It Comes to ‘Junk Fees’?

Who’s the Biggest Culprit When It Comes to ‘Junk Fees’?

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