The Inalienable Right to Television

Never Yet Melted blog ^ | 12/09/05 | JDZ

[Venator]

George Will exposes another spectacular waste of federal tax money: subsidized television upgrades:

Feeling, evidently, flush with (other people’s) cash, the Senate has concocted a novel way to spend $3 billion: create a new entitlement. The Senate has passed — and so has the House, with differences — an entitlement to digital television.

If this filigree on the welfare state becomes law, everyone who owns old analog television sets — everyone from your Aunt Emma in her wee apartment to the millionaire in the neighborhood McMansion who has such sets in the maid’s room and the guest house — will get subsidies to pay for making those sets capable of receiving digital signals….

[H. Paul Pressler IV]

Good thing the Republicans are now in charge on Congress.

[RambozoDClown]

Obscene. Grandma can't afford her Meds but she can get her TV set upgraded.....maybe she can find a good show on natural do-it-yourself home remedies.

[ex-snook]

Let's see if the government mandated that digital TV be required around 2009. The government will sell the frequencies for 10 Billion [a bit of a profit over 3 Billion].
The government has created an unfunded mandate. Also more trade deficit to fund the Chinese TV manufacturers. I love it when a plan comes together.

[supercat]

Basically, the idea is that in exchange for revoking broadcaster's licenses to broadcast on the old analog frequencies (which allows the government to resell those frequencies for a lot of money), the government ensures that those broadcasters can still reach people with the old sets. If the cost of the equipment is less than what the government receives from the sale of the frequencies, it would seem like that could be a net win.

On the other hand, I must confess to some bewilderment as to what the frequencies are needed for. There's a lot more bandwidth available at higher frequencies, and while the range isn't as good I'm not sure what applications need that much range.