Case Against Wireless Funding In The Stimulus
I'm not crazy about the current stimulus plan (it seems to change on a daily basis, to my great frustration) but I'm not crazy against it either. For instance, I'm somewhat psyched that there's any funding for high speed rail at all (there's $8 billion) or that there are $40 billion in unemployment benefits. But I'm unhappy that of the $48 billion in infrastructure spending, $27 billion will go to roads and highways. I'm betting that's more than is required to just repair existing roads and highways or that Obama's favorite environmental project, weatherizing homes, gets only $5 billion. That's ridiculous. That's tiny. It's also a little scary that that was the favorite stimulus project of the President and it couldn't get more funding.
Besides all that, I'm baffled that broadband
wireless is considered stimulus at all, much less getting almost as
much as high speed rail. Whether anything in this package is
stimulating is a relative term since spending is stimulus (as both
liberals and conservatives agree, spending is good for the economy).
This is one of those rare occasions when I split from the common progressive stance. To be specific, I'm not sure how useful broadband funding would be. Julian Sanchez at Ars Technica
has an article up about broadband wireless. Basically, it's unclear
what the actual intention of funding broadband wireless would be.
According to the AP's reporting on the stimulus bill, the official
wording is "$7 billion to bring broadband Internet service to
underserved areas." This is a bit unclear. If underserved areas are
poorer urban environments, then this is a bad idea because
implementation of new wireless areas wouldn't happen for about two
years. Also, according to Sanchez, injecting funds into broadband could
cause existing grants to be spent elsewhere in the broadband world with
less beneficial results. I don't know too muchabout this second
argument but the first one makes sense to me. That's all for broadband
in poor urban areas.
I don't know about broadband spending in rural areas. On the one hand rural Americans have fewer ways of getting goods and services. Newspapers are uncommon and the variety of ways to find listings are rarer too. On the other hand, I still don't know if that's worth $7 billion when weatherizing houses is not. We're talking about a small percentage of Americans (under 30%) who would benefit in only a spending way but not an environmental one or through extensive creation of jobs. It might also take up two years to fully implement the new wireless broadband. By then who knows what the economy is going to be like.
I like Julian Sanchez, yet am somewhat amused that you'd cite his opposition to a stimulus package. Sanchez is staunchly libertarian in his political view, and is a contributing editor for Reason magazine. That Sanchez would be opposed to governmental economic stimulus should come as no surprise. Since Ars Technica is technology related news, it's no surprise that Sanchez, Ars Technica's D.C. editor would focus his opposition to the stimulus package on the broadband part of it.
I am also amused that you failed to mention one of Julian Sanchez's primary concerns regarding the broadband part of the stimulus package: Senator Feinstein's amendment, and the action alert published by Public Knowledge regarding it. Freinstein proves once again that she is no friend of liberty, and is far too willing to surrender up the people's freedom to the state as an ill-defined response to a broad spectrum evil, in this instance allowing users of publicly funded broadband access to be spied upon by private corporations with the intent of "deterring unlawful activity, including child pornography and copyright infringement".
I'll not forget Senator Feinstein's smiley face of approval upon Guantanamo Bay:
February 12, 2009 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink