Mobile Telemarketing Bill Changes

The House of Representatives have been discussing a bill that would allow prerecorded voice messages to call mobile phones. This bill is called The Mobile Informational Call Act of 2011. This bill would change the Telephone Consumer Protection Act which was enacted in 1991. Currently, the TCPA does not allow companies to use automated dialing and prerecorded voice messages to call cell phones.

This new act is a bipartisan act, one supporter is Lee Terry. One argument for the act is that technology has changed in many different ways since the TCPA was enacted in 1991. This statement is true since many more people use wireless phones instead of land lines since 1991. Also cell phone customers are not typically charged by the minute like they were in 1991.

The argument against this bill would be that most mobile phone cutomers do not want telemarketers calling their wireless phones. What does the bill do to counteract this argument? The bill states that the person receiving the automated call must have given prior express consent. What does prior express consent mean? According to the bill it means the oral or written approval of a person. The bill also states that express consent is given if the call is regarding an already established business relationship or if the customer provided a telephone number as a means of contact when purchasing a product or service.

When reading this bill, I understood this as, if a customer orders a product and provided a phone number, regardless what type of phone it it, that customer could receive an automated call in the future. So the only way a consumer could make sure that they would not recieve an automated cal would be to not provide a phone number for means of contact.

Could this bill provide companies with more profits therefore stimulationg the economy? If businesses were able to place automated calls to wireless phones, they would be able to reach more potential customers. This could increase sales therefore causing the need for more products or services to be produced or provided. This would mean more jobs and increase in profits that could be taxed.

More people have been switching from landlines to mobile phones in the past few years. The question then becomes, has the TCPA been causing companies to lose profits, since companies cannot contact as many customers as they were able to in 1991?  Could this bill help our economy?

Are we at a Standstill or is America Splitting Apart or Both

It seems as if our country or rather congress is at a standstill. From what I have read, watched, or been told, is that since we are heading into an election year, Democrats do not want to pass anything that has been created by Republicans even if they agree with it. On the flip side, Republicans do not want to pass anything that has been written by Democrats regardless if they agree with it or not. the reason behind this is that neither of them want the other party to look better. Many representatives have said that they have submitted many proposals but congress will either not even vote or just not pass them. Is this not what they are paid to do vote on proposals or better yet pass bills? Why pay these congress men and women if they are not doing their jobs?

So what is going to happen? Well if you have been paying attention to the news then you have been seeing President Obama going around Congress to try and get things done. Is this something that should be done? Maybe! We will have to wait and see how it pans out but at least something is trying to be done.

If Congress is not doing anything and if Americans are very dissapointed in Congress, then why do we need them. It would save the country quite a bit of money by not having to pay them. Maybe things would actually get accomplished.

If Congress was gone what could be done to help the country? I have thought that we could have the House of Representatives write bills and then they could be voted on by the people. The argument to that would be that not everyone will vote. Well to counteract that this would get more people to vote and if someone doesn't vote then they have no one else to blame besides themselves if they do not like what is passed. This would also create jobs since people have to run the polls when a bill comes up for vote. Another argument is who would keep those bills in check to make sure that they are not unconstitutional. Well we have the judicial system to ensure this.

It is just an idea. Something drastic needs to happen in this country for it to change. Regardless if you agree or not it is something to think about. Feel free to let me know what you think. There will be more posts to come on a varitey of topics related to politics and the government.

MTOG (Quick name for this blog)