Republicans Kill Popular FCC Program That Made Broadband Affordable for the Poor

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/06/republicans-kill-popular-fcc-program-that-made-broadband-affordable-for-the-poor/

by rntn • 2 years ago

37 49 2 years ago

hilbert423• 2 years ago

I don't live in the US although I've been there many times and I've even worked there at times yet I still cannot understand why the country is deliberately tearing itself apart on matters like this. If you want to alienate one section of one's community then this is a surefire way of doing it.

Why is it that Republicans so despise and revile the poorer sections of their community? Don't they realize the actual damage they're doing to their country by fracturing its cohesiveness?

westmeal• 2 years ago

It's not just the republicans doing it it's our entire government.

melkor73• 2 years ago

In this case, it's literally Republicans.

bigbillheck• 2 years ago

They don't consider themselves to be in community with poor people.

hilbert423• 2 years ago

Ha, someone upvoted my comment and then it disappeared in a second. To the outsider this says a lot. :-)

godzillabrennus• 2 years ago

The United States of America is more of a corporation than a country. Would you offer support for people who aren’t your customers?

People who don’t donate to the party, who can’t organize worth a dang to vote you out, well, they are unimportant and programs for them should be dismantled.

toomuchtodo5• 2 years ago

There is no way to ask this question here without it devolving deep into politics, but here we go.

Republicans don't have policy to run on. They pander to their base, while also laughing behind their back [1]. Their base votes for them because these representatives appeal to their feelings, even though the people they vote for are actively harming them (red states are finally, begrudgingly, adopting Federal Medcaid expansion funding because they have workforce shortages [2]).

Because of the electoral college, there is no way to fix this for presidential elections [3] and rural America is heavily overrepresented congressionally. States with resources can provide for their own citizens (California is the world's fifth largest economy, for example), rural America will continue to slowly die a slow death as young people leave for opportunity [4], leaving behind those with oversized voting power.

Your options are leave the parts of the country in decline, leave the country, or stay in decline. It's not great [5].

[1] https://www.salon.com/2024/03/05/-the-media-should-stop-trea...

[2] https://www.kff.org/affordable-care-act/issue-brief/status-o...

[3] https://demcastusa.com/2019/11/11/land-doesnt-vote-people-do...

[4] https://stateline.org/2021/08/10/shrinking-rural-america-fac...

[5] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00027162211070061

matthewaveryusa• 2 years ago

Their base votes for them because these Reps appeal to their feelings, even though the people they vote for are actively harming them.

You need to continue the logic here: So the democrats in shining white armor are here to help them out because they know better. This further antagonizes the republican base because worse than being destitute is to be dependent on government handouts.

On the united states being united: We've had a civil war. The big mistake a lot of folks make when looking at the united states is looking at them in a cohesive way. We aren't, we don't share common values, and only share laws that permit a common and efficient market (which includes defense and foreign policy.) Folks mostly choose to live in Missisippi/Texas vs Massachusetts/California. The social benefits and zeitgeist are very different and America is big enough to offer both styles of living.

MR4D• 2 years ago

A few corrections:

1 - Congress makes laws, not the President (although he signs them).

2 - Congressional members are elected directly, not by the electoral college.

3 - The electoral college is not impacted by whether people are rural or urban. [0]

States can always choose to apply subsidies themselves. They all have different tax rates already [1], so subsidies are easy if they want [1].

[0] https://www.270towin.com/content/split-electoral-votes-maine...

[1] https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/wireless-taxes-cell...

hilbert423• 2 years ago

I've only read one of your links so far but I thought I'd better jump in and add this point. What the US does both at home and with its foreign policy has a profound effect on many of us—its allies—yet we have no vote to help change things (sometimes I think we ought to become an extra state to rectify this).

Many supporters of the US, myself included, cringe at news like this. We watch in horror in an era when we need a strong and cohesive US more than ever.

2devnull2• 2 years ago

This is remarkably clear thinking and serious analysis. Thank you for the insightful scholarly contribution!

downrightmike• 2 years ago

It costs more money to service these customers, not profitable and that is all that matters to the indignant domestic terrorists. It fuels their anger, and all they want to do is be angry and not solve problems, and also to break systems that fix problems. A lot of the problem is that we have too many people that were denied opportunity or services that could have made them not pieces of shit. And now they fight tooth and nail to make sure that the system makes more people that are fucked over just like them. Stockholm syndrome kinda. Also makes sense when you look at whether they can read or not:

Nationwide, on average, 79% of U.S. adults are literate in 2022.

21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2022.

54% of adults have a literacy below sixth-grade level.

21% of Americans 18 and older are illiterate in 2022.

Low literacy rates end up costing Americans up to $2.2 trillion every year.

https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/literacy-statisti....

dkjaudyeqooe• 2 years ago

Republicans are just ideologues, or for the current crop of MAGA Republicans, nutjobs with no discernable ideology.

You get the same in Europe with the far right parties, it's just that they don't share power.

adderthorn• 2 years ago

I can speak as someone who lives in the US and in a state that has a republican super majority in our government. Without making this an issue specific to republicans, the US two-party government often creates an citizenry who views elections as a zero-sum game. One where one side wins and therefore the other must lose. Increasingly, republicans are attempting to foster an environment where the larger, democratic cities are "the problem" and therefore legislate to "punish" them by removing things like broadband for the poor.

Part of this is because the new GOP is mostly rural voters and they generally don't benefit from city investments. But part of it is to make a political point. Again, they only "win" when the other side "loses." Democrat politicians will do this too, but often not as much (in my experience) and often with less punitive motives. For example, killing coal plants wasn't punitive, but it ended up hurting a large section of rural economy that depended on the mining of coal for a living.

josefresco3• 2 years ago

Coal mining represents a very small part of the American and rural economy. It was simply used as a wedge by wealthy Republicans to divide Americans.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/215790/coal-mining-emplo...

nimbius• 2 years ago

class war is nothing new. elites generally alienate and isolate the poor, as their interests seldom converge and are often opposed.

Part of the reason is also a cope. That the nature of wealth under late-stage neoliberal capitalism exacerbates to such a prolific extent poverty, strife, homelessness and other maladies of the impoverished is a very distressing concern. For quite some time wealthy elites have coddled themselves with the tutelage that "poor people are poor because they are lazy." Television, radio, and internet all have elite points of presence to reinforce this propaganda in various consumable forms. Recognizing and reacting to wealth disparity in the west with anything more than a casual nod could lead to the wholesale downfall of the neoliberal castle that so many elites have build over the past forty years.

"kill all the poors" policy in the words of the venerable Mitchell and Webb show is largely a regression to feudalism from whence capitalism came. its the manifestation of an acute overdose of capitalist elites "copium." a cut on the nose to spite the face if you will.

silent_cal11• 2 years ago

This program was not for the "poor". I know because I got this discount, and I do not need it at all.

sjsdaiuasgdia3• 2 years ago

A program can be intended to help the poor and also create situations where people who have less need / no heed for help might be included. The world is complicated and sometimes it's easier and cheaper to allow this versus the kind of investigation, data analysis, and administrative overhead needed to more accurately target the benefit.

silent_cal11• 2 years ago

My family is at least 4x the poverty level income.

josefresco3• 2 years ago

What was your household income and how many occupants?

silent_cal11• 2 years ago

Over 100k, 2 parents and a baby. But the baby came in December.

richwater• 2 years ago

More often than not, state and local government regulatory capture/government approved monopolies affect broadband availability way more than corporate interest.

soupfordummies2• 2 years ago

Comcast is literally the only option at my complex.

Apparently Google Fiber is available but the steps to get it installed require a lot of sign-off from entities that aren't available or don't care.

pram• 2 years ago

It seems like with all the many billions that have been spent on various rural/universal access/subsidy schemes over the past decades we literally could have run fiber to every building in the United States by now lol

soupfordummies2• 2 years ago

But that wouldn't have allowed Comcast and AT&T to continue their duopoly dance to the tune of record profits as easily.

It's honestly past time to start regulating Internet as a public utility. Look at the municipalities that have public Internet (Chattanooga, TN is the big one here but there are others) and the speed, quality and customer satisfaction is through the roof.

2devnull2• 2 years ago

They should just allow PG&E to merge with Comcast. All these problems would be solved by the cpuc. Why don’t the political partisans want easy answers like that?

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

FCC page with updates rather than this jumbled article of every other word linked:

https://www.fcc.gov/acp

Why none of their releases are in HTML I have no idea

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-formal-notice-april-...

Republicans Kill Popular FCC Program That Made Broadband Affordable for the Poor

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