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The Inalienable Right to a Remote [63% of households in "poverty" have cable TV or satellite dish]
The Washington Post ^ | December 8, 2005 | George F. Will

Posted on 12/08/2005 8:32:02 AM PST by grundle

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.

by April 2009 broadcasters must end analog transmissions and the government will have auctioned the analog frequencies for various telecommunications purposes. For the vast majority of Americans, April 2009 will mean . . . absolutely nothing. Nationwide, 85 percent of all television households (and 63 percent of households below the poverty line) already have cable or satellite service.

All Americans -- rich and poor; it is uncompassionate to discriminate on the basis of money when dispersing money -- will be equally entitled to the help.

The $990 million House version of this entitlement -- call it No Couch Potato Left Behind -- is (relatively) parsimonious: Consumers would get vouchers worth only $40 and would be restricted to a measly two vouchers per household. The Senate's more spacious entitlement would pay for most of the cost -- $50 to $60 -- of the converter boxes. But there is Republican rigor in this: Consumers would be required to pay $10. That is the conservatism in compassionate conservatism.

Yet Americans have such an entitlement mentality, they seem to think that every pleasure -- e.g., digital television -- should be a collective right, meaning a federally funded entitlement.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: welfare
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To: grundle
Ridiculous.

I used to have "Section 8" tenants a long time ago. They were welfare cases. The state paid for everything for them. They had more cable channels than you and all of your friends put together.

To be poor in America.

I always felt that welfare should only pay for the essentials of life - not the fruits of labor.
If I were king, I would look through the welfare rolls, and then match it with the cable subscribers lists and deduct the amount these folks pay for cable TV from their welfare checks.

They want cable, or TV for that matter, go out and get a job to pay for it. Don't tax it out of my paycheck!

21 posted on 12/08/2005 8:44:19 AM PST by Bon mots
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To: Acts 2:38
...or fillet mignon and a nice car.

My dad was part of a big layoff at a large Midwestern meat company back in the early 80s. Times were hard and work was impossible to find in the area I grew up in. My family and I (I was about 12 years old at the time) did all we could to avoid taking a handout from the government.

We did farm work - baling hay and walking soybean fields.

We went hunting to supplement the groceries we could afford.

My dad also delivered 100# bottles of propane to various houses (where it was used for stoves and water heaters).

I can remember going to house after house of people who did not work and were on welfare. They had nice cars, cable TV and were eating very well - including the previously mentioned fillet mignon.

But they didn't work.

This experience planted the conservative seed in me at an early time. We were making it (barely) on our own, but these freeloaders were making it on the backs of people like my dad.

22 posted on 12/08/2005 8:44:52 AM PST by AlaninSA (It's ONE NATION UNDER GOD...brought to you by the Knights of Columbus)
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To: MichiganConservative

"They have to buy votes somehow."

The government that robs Peter to pay Paul is almost assured of Paul's vote.


23 posted on 12/08/2005 8:44:55 AM PST by gondramB ( We don't get no government loan and no one sends a check from home-we just do what what we wanna)
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To: gondramB
Seeking new ways to keep the perpetual poverty stricken, by choice, addicted to government and the humanistic ass***** to feel self righteous about something. Sickening, isn't it?
24 posted on 12/08/2005 8:45:10 AM PST by nmh ( Intelligent people believe in Intelligent Design (God))
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For the vast majority of Americans, April 2009 will mean . . . absolutely nothing. Nationwide, 85 percent of all television households (and 63 percent of households below the poverty line) already have cable or satellite service.

I'm a little confused about the changeover...my TV's are 'not new', but I have Time Warner cable.

Wifey is certain we'd have to either get new sets or the converter box...the above indicates maybe not.

Anybody here know?

25 posted on 12/08/2005 8:46:21 AM PST by ErnBatavia (403-3)
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To: grundle
The odd thing is that those converters will allow people to continue to receive commercials and I think it safe to assume that someone somewhere makes money off those commercials....so the taxpayer gets to pay so someone else can make money without providing anything more in return than they would have otherwise. That is making the assumption that media outlets will simply throw up their hands and give up their efforts to reach those that will not afford a one-time charge of $40 per box but can pay more than that per month for cable.

Note to Republicans: You are supposed to be conservatives; that is *why* you were hired. Learn that or be fired. That is all.
26 posted on 12/08/2005 8:47:21 AM PST by P-40 (http://www.590klbj.com/forum/index.php?referrerid=1854)
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To: jude24
Do conisder, however: the moving force behind the conversion from analog to digital is that the US Gov't wants to auction off the old analog frequencies, and replace them with digital frequencies, which requires much less bandwidth. Those old analog radio frequencies are worth a fortune.

Let us also consider that the new technology will also make each reciever 'addressable' which means no more anonomynity.

Kinda' like todays cell phones and your car.

Big brother is only twenty years late, but he's here.

27 posted on 12/08/2005 8:47:30 AM PST by Looking4Truth (Sick and tired of being sick and tired of being screwed over.)
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To: grundle

The "poor" typically have air conditioners, cars, Xboxes, all the things the rest of us have to struggle to earn money to buy. Why do we even act surprised?

There should be no air conditioners or cars, or satellite dishes, or cable wires, running into ANY public housing. If you can't pay rent, food, and utilities... these other items are absolute LUXURY items that TAXPAYERS should never subsidize. EVER.


28 posted on 12/08/2005 8:47:58 AM PST by AbeKrieger (Islam is the virus that causes al-Qaeda.)
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To: grundle

"No couch potato left behind."


29 posted on 12/08/2005 8:49:38 AM PST by randita
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To: gondramB

LOL!
Yeah,
Only an ADD'er can understand 3 TV's goin' at once ;)


30 posted on 12/08/2005 8:49:49 AM PST by najida (Cruelty, mockery, ridicule.....the weapon of bullies.)
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To: grundle

I'm pretty sure the constitutional right to TV can be found right there in one of those penumbras emanating from the glow of the screen.


31 posted on 12/08/2005 8:50:12 AM PST by Pessimist
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To: grundle

In my daily commute to and from work, the train passes through some poor neighborhoods in South Florida. I'd say that at least 50% of them have a satellite dish. Thats at least $40 per month (maybe $30). I'll bet alot of them have a cellphone that rings up around $50 a month minimum. Thats better than what I have, which is a prepaid cellphone that averages maybe $10 per month.


32 posted on 12/08/2005 8:52:03 AM PST by Paradox (Time to sharpen ole Occam's Razor.)
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To: MichiganConservative

It pisses me of no end!

Meanwhile we get tazed up the gazoo to fund this CRAP!

Heck, we're up there income wise but you wouldn't know it AFTER taxes. You're LITERLLY punished for being responsible. It's NOT worth me returning to work - just more to take from us. It's ridiculous.

Where are the REPUBLICANS on this CRAP?


33 posted on 12/08/2005 8:52:57 AM PST by nmh ( Intelligent people believe in Intelligent Design (God))
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To: grundle

It's "bread and circuses"...I've noted that "impoverished" families
shown on TV often have much better TVs and sound systems than I ever
would be able to afford.


34 posted on 12/08/2005 8:53:15 AM PST by VOA
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To: Acts 2:38

I hope He comes soon ... and then they can have what they reaped with NO Restrainer. DO you think it will be soon, as I hope?


35 posted on 12/08/2005 8:54:12 AM PST by nmh ( Intelligent people believe in Intelligent Design (God))
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To: gondramB
Requiring digital tv will cost many people quite a bit of money. For example, for me it will require that I change from basic/extended cable to digital cable. It will cost me to do that.

The bill in congress will not pay for monthly cable charges. It is a one time payment. My guess it would give you at best a converter that will allow analog TVs to get over the air digital. Without a converter, those without cable will no longer be able to get any TV station.

BTW, knowing the the government was going to force me to go to digital, my newest tv is a 30 inch Sony HDTV and as my son says, I am still too cheap to get digital cable.
36 posted on 12/08/2005 8:54:35 AM PST by jimbergin
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To: AbeKrieger

I agree.

Living of the gvt whould consist of living in some sort of quasi military cement block camp. I'm serious. They should provide food, shelter and not much else.

To get in, you should have to sign away your "right to privacy", right to reproduction etc. It should be made clear this is not an entitlement but an act of charity that you may or may not chooses to accept.

I know this sounds draconian, but I think its warranted in order to both sufficiently motivate people not to sink to that level as well as to take over the decision making rights of those who do.


37 posted on 12/08/2005 8:55:07 AM PST by Pessimist
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To: Bon mots

I agree with you completely.


38 posted on 12/08/2005 8:55:36 AM PST by cpprfld (Who said accountants are boring?)
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To: AbeKrieger

I agree with you.

I'm living well above the poverty line and I don't even own a TV.

Why??

Because working 3 jobs doesn't allow me time to watch TV.

This makes me sick.


39 posted on 12/08/2005 8:57:29 AM PST by Tenny
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To: AlaninSA

I thik its safe to say that PBS will never document experiences such as yours, however telling and commonplace they may be.

Our entire nation's attitude toward poverty is shaped by a great lie which can exist because the majority of even middle class people have no first hand experience of it.


40 posted on 12/08/2005 8:58:21 AM PST by Pessimist
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