Is broadband infrastructure? Republicans used to think so

[DonViejo]

Republicans less sure that providing the service to all Americans is infrastructure, or at least at Biden's price tag

By Dean DeChiaro
Posted April 13, 2021 at 6:00am

The debate in Congress over President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan has featured a clean, simple attack line from Republicans: Most of the money wouldn’t really go to infrastructure.

Of course, that depends entirely on how you define infrastructure. For their purposes, Republicans are opting for a classic definition, seeking to limit the scope to things like roads and bridges. Russell Vought, who led the Office of Management and Budget under President Donald Trump, asserted in a recent Fox News appearance that “only 5 to 7 percent” of the plan is actual infrastructure.

And although that assertion was awarded “Three Pinocchios” by a Washington Post fact-checker, one can make an argument that funding in the plan for things like home-care services and electric vehicle purchases isn’t exactly infrastructure. But Republicans’ objection to one piece of the plan, broadband expansion so that households in all parts of the country have access to fast internet service, seems the result of a particularly curious case of political amnesia.

“There are a number of bipartisan ideas to bridge the digital divide that would work better than adding to the national debt,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told The Wall Street Journal recently. It would be a waste of taxpayer funds to start “flooding the country with federal dollars in the name of universal broadband,” Blackburn said.

more
https://www.rollcall.com/2021/04/13/is-broadband-infrastructure-republicans-used-to-think-so/

[Pobeka]

1. This is all about not jeopardizing Comcast's profits, not what GOP labels infrastructure. n/t

[birdographer]

2. Broadband expansion would be nice...

It's 2021 and here in my small town we are running at typical 1980's dial-up speed. We are lucky to get to 2.5 mbps.

[jcgoldie]

3. I live 7 miles outside a town of 30 k

And just 30 mi north of downtown STL and my only broadband option is satellite with datacap at 50 GB each month.

[Wounded Bear]

4. RWers love to play word games...

roiling the confusion and generally muddying the waters by making people wonder what they're actually fighting for. Just another extension of their "pro life" argument going forward. "That's not what you really mean, is it?"

[LiberalFighter]

5. Hell yes...

If it reduces the need for interstate transportation. Is needed to integrate with roads and mass transportation. Allows for other modes of transportation to provide services.

[modrepub]

6. In The Minority Here

I'm generally against federally subsidizing money-loosing infrastructure. If it can't be paid for by locally generated revenue, then it's probably not worth it. Costs will pile up as time goes on and more federal or state revenue will have to be diverted to support a money loosing entity.

Before I get skewered, if there isn't enough local demand for the service then the cost will get passed on at some larger level. You're getting a service you're not paying fully for and someone else is going to have to subsidize your usage. That someone else may or may not be able to "absorb" the cost for your share. They may be in a disadvantaged area embedded in a more densely populated urban or suburban area which can actually support the infrastructure just based on a larger pool of users. It drives the cost up for everyone and actually encourages waste. There's no self pruning mechanism and the loosing parts will sap resources from the stronger self supporting parts.

[bluecollar2]

8. In a civilised society

Not everything has to be profitable...

[modrepub]

9. And In A Civilized Society

everyone would actually "pay" for what they use.

Let's take our country's military. On a purely economic level, our military budget should be properly divided amongst the people (and corporations) who are protected by it or directly benefit from its use. Imagine how we'd all react is the US military sent out monthly bills for their services. We'd all get an honest sense of how much the service costs. Maybe we'd even question the wisdom of diverting resources that could be better used elsewhere if we each had a clue how much is being squandered by our military actions.

Let's not stop there. Let's reimpose the draft so more of us get to actually experience what it's like to be deployed on active duty. Maybe someone you intimately know will be able to relay the experience to you (hopefully they'll return relatively unscathed). Maybe they'll be unlucky and you'll get to experience seeing the pain and suffering of someone physically or mentally traumatized by their experience (and maybe if you're real empathetic you'll realize the civilians that were caught in the middle of these military adventures are suffering the same as our soldiers). Maybe if more of us actually experienced the consequences or our military adventures we'd think better of getting involved in the first place.

What I've outlined is called "skin in the game". Systems that push consequences onto a small subset of folks who either voluntarily or involuntarily get to shoulder the bulk of burden are unethical in my opinion. We've allowed our politicians to removed this facet by hiding true costs (shifting them to future generations via unlimited government borrowing) or limiting the physical impacts of their actions to a smaller segment of society. Without an even distribution, lots of folks will get the benefits without experiencing the true costs of their actions.

[bluecollar2]

12. I understand your argument

However i don't subscribe to the concept of economic and social Darwinism as a model for running a country.

Everyone should be entitled to equal access to essential services regardless of their ability to pay.

[modrepub]

13. And I Don't Accept

That properly functioning markets are at their core evil mechanisms of greed.

I'm all for opportunity and inclusion. In a truly functioning market, anyone who is innovative and has access and drive can reap the full benefits of their toil. There are plenty of entrepreneurs who do great things for society. Many of them rising from poor, obscure backgrounds to become American business tycoons who mainly did good things for society. And those folks and their descendants rarely hold sway for very long before the next "tycoon" comes in and replaces them.

Not to say capitalism isn't without its faults or that government shouldn't have a place in ensuring fair access and sometimes protection from preditory business practices. But I'd challenge you to name something good out of a communist or severe socialist society that doesn't allow for the individual rewards of the entrepreneurs and innovators.

Granting equal access regardless of cost has unintended consequences. It's inefficient, encourages waste and stifles necessary change. The main reason our healthcare system is so expensive in my mind is we haven't come to terms with end of life issues. Most of our medical expenses are generated in the last phases of life because we and our loved ones can't come to grips with our mortality. We're so rabidly against death we won't allow ourselves the quiet dignity of choosing to end the suffering like we do our pets. Addicts are locked up because we can't properly assess the long-term costs of treatment versus the quick profit tendencies of our drug industry. And so forth and so forth.

[bluecollar2]

14. Nicely done....typical Republican talking point...

"But I'd challenge you to name something good out of a communist or severe socialist society that doesn't allow for the individual rewards of the entrepreneurs and innovators"

Let me guess...white, male, American...never lived in a foreign country...educated in the American public school system....

Let's end this conversation now. White male privilege and selfrighteousnes piss me off.

Have a nice day.

[modrepub]

18. When You Resort To Insults

Then you've pretty much admitted that you've lost the argument.

My paternal grandfather was Chamoro. He and my uncle were forced labor during the Japanese occupation. Despite only having a 4th grade education, he and my grandmother were a good business people. They had the resources (sold everything) to move most of their family to CA in the 50s. My father was a poor to middling college student (the first in his family to graduate college). He wound up being a computer programer until he was laid off in his mid 50s. My maternal grandfather was a teacher in Washington County, ME, one of the poorest counties in New England. Mother became a nurse after my parents divorce. I'm a career government worker at the state and federal level. You could argue my minority background unduly helped in my government career.

The basic point I'm trying to make is that by not taking any economics into the equation you can actually take away opportunities for folks on the lower end of the economic spectrum. You want broad band (or any service) universally available regardless of cost, you'll have to subsidize it by charging everyone more for the service. So to get some rural (white most likely) area serviced, other folks will get charged more. Now those inner city folks who would have had a lower rate because there are more people who can be serviced are charged more because they have to subsidize the rural folks where there aren't enough people to justify the service. I guess my example just fits right in to the "white privilege" argument you threw at me.

Bless your heart.

[hunter]

15. We need to stop subsidizing the automobile industry.

Car culture needs to die.

Everyone who is not actually working the land in rural U.S.A. needs to move back to the city. Trains could handle all long distance shipping.

Hmmmm....

My great grandma, who lived on a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere, was still complaining that her husband, my great grandfather had signed on to rural electrification decades before. Her house had no plumbing, two forty watt light bulbs, and my great grandfather's damned radio, an instrument of the devil for sure. To be fair, powering his damned radio was probably the only reason my great grandfather agreed to rural electrification.

They didn't need electricity for lighting. They already had a nice Aladdin oil lamp that was plenty bright enough for reading.

Powering a radio before the transistor age was not a trivial problem. Vacuum tubes required a lot of electricity. An electric generator powered by the wind or tractor fuel, batteries, and a little motor-generator cost more than than the radio itself and required constant maintenance.

Most people, other than self-isolated people like the Amish, want to fully participate in the modern world. In the 1930s that would have been automobiles and radios. Even if the internet itself is subsidized, just as rural highways and electric services are subsidized, broadband internet allows people who must live in rural areas greater participation in the larger U.S. economy.

Telemedicine can improve lives. Watching a YouTube video about repairing a car or farm equipment can make a big difference. Many opportunities for education are available online. Etc.

The investments we, as a nation make in these sorts of infrastructure are often returned in indirect ways, not just profits for corporations like Netflix or Amazon.

[Initech]

7. If more people are going to be working from home...

Then the digital infrastructure needs to be improved as much as the real one does. We need more access to wifi across the board, better routers, and faster internet service for all.

To preface - I live in an area where it took almost 10 years to get cable internet after just about everyone else did (stupid CA cable monopoly rules). It will take easily that long or more before fiber-based internet comes my way. I have been wanting to petition the city to get it here sooner.

[ok_cpu]

10. Here's one who seems to have changed his tune since 1/20/21

Just a sampling...

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[cinematicdiversions]

11. A lot of people when looking for a house in the exburbs or the country

Thier first question is broadband speed. A lot of smaller communities have learned if you want to attract investment and residents reliable broadband is a must.

[hunter]

17. I think that's the first thing my children looked at when they graduated from college...

... and were looking for homes. No unlimited ultra-high speed internet, no deal.

They have optical fiber going direct to their servers.

When the pandemic hit our children were able to shift their work to their homes without any problems.

They are big city kids.

It's funny. My wife and I met working in the big city but we chose not to live there.

Our jobs were not dependent on the internet then.

Now they are.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

16. I do some contract work installing broadband equipment

During the Obama administration the Connect America Fund was started to extend broadband to areas that didn't have it. These were generally rural areas that leaned Republican.

This work continued into the Trump administration so it's clear the Republicans supported it. Now that there's a Democrat in the Whitehouse the Repukes want to make him look bad.