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There is no broken budget, the US government isn't a household, it controls its own fiat currency. Projects which increase economic activity (like rural broadb

by verall 3y ago

There is no broken budget, the US government isn't a household, it controls its own fiat currency. Projects which increase economic activity (like rural broadband) can be revenue positive without fees or anything. Now if the money all gets swallowed up by a huge ISP that doesn't actually give underserved people broadband, then everyone loses and its just corporate sponsorship.

dclowd9901 3y ago
Like what happened last time, you mean.
- verall 3y ago
  Yeah, I know, it sucks
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  I hear this on reddit-like social media all the time but I am disappointed to see it here. This is a low-effort and reductionist take. According to the GAO from 2009 through 2017, private ISPs made about $800 billion in capital investments and federal contributions for rural broadband in that period totalled about $50 billion. What would success look like for that 50 billion? Broadband to everywhere? America is very big and infrastructure is slow and expensive. That doesn't mean we can't ever do useful work by subsidizing the deployment on infrastructure. We can and should spend public money to improve broadband infrastructure. I have seen quite a few hugely successful subsidized broadband deployments from PUDs and small municipal power distribution companies in even lightly populated counties. For my money, continuing to subsidize these organizations and empowering them to sell broadband access direct to consumers is a huge value for the money.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - deprecative 3y ago
    I, too, am disappointed that funding the government provides to a for profit entity to provide minimal service to an area is used to pay for an exec's bonus or salary.
_heimdall 3y ago
> Projects which increase economic activity Do you know if there's any way we could really track this?Deficit spending increases the money supply which itself will increase economic activity. I'm not sure how we could know whether an increase in economic activity is due to broadband access or the new cash, especially when the project would likely take years.

by verall 3y ago

dclowd9901 3y ago

Like what happened last time, you mean.

verall 3y ago
Yeah, I know, it sucks
idiotsecant 3y ago
I hear this on reddit-like social media all the time but I am disappointed to see it here. This is a low-effort and reductionist take. According to the GAO from 2009 through 2017, private ISPs made about $800 billion in capital investments and federal contributions for rural broadband in that period totalled about $50 billion. What would success look like for that 50 billion? Broadband to everywhere? America is very big and infrastructure is slow and expensive. That doesn't mean we can't ever do useful work by subsidizing the deployment on infrastructure. We can and should spend public money to improve broadband infrastructure. I have seen quite a few hugely successful subsidized broadband deployments from PUDs and small municipal power distribution companies in even lightly populated counties. For my money, continuing to subsidize these organizations and empowering them to sell broadband access direct to consumers is a huge value for the money.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deprecative 3y ago
  I, too, am disappointed that funding the government provides to a for profit entity to provide minimal service to an area is used to pay for an exec's bonus or salary.

_heimdall 3y ago

> Projects which increase economic activity Do you know if there's any way we could really track this?Deficit spending increases the money supply which itself will increase economic activity. I'm not sure how we could know whether an increase in economic activity is due to broadband access or the new cash, especially when the project would likely take years.