Legislatures are frequently taken to task for creating stealth tax increases through the use of "fees." By upping fees, they can go back to their home states and trumpet how they held the line on taxes while at the same time increasing revenues to pay for more government programs.
Well, legislatures aren't the only ones. Take a look at your cell phone bill and you'll see all kinds of add-on fees that you aren't told about when you sign up. This article from MSNBC (see it here) seems to be saying many of those fees are either mislabeled, vague, or downright lies. In other words, these private companies raise the cost of using their services by creating fees out of thin air (car dealers also do this by adding fees for "license processing" or just calling it ADM for Additional Dealer Markup - i.e., profit) and since all of them are doing it, you have no choice.
I can still remember certain people saying deregulation was supposed to bring lower prices and more choices. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it depends on whether there is competition or not. It may be too early for a good determination, but this grand experiment in reforming government doesn't seem to be meeting the stated objectives.
