Cable TV: Regulation or Competition?

In 1984, Congress simultaneously eliminated state-local regulation of cable television rates and banned telephone companies from offering cable service in their own franchise areas. Five years later, the General Accounting Office discovered that basic cable rates had risen more than four times as rapidly as the overall consumer price level since rate deregulation. As a result, Congress began to move to reimpose cable rate regulation once again, finally succeeding (over President Bush's veto...