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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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1 posted on 12/08/2005 8:32:03 AM PST by grundle
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To: grundle

"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, "

I have seven televisions.... I should get seven times as much entitlement, right?


2 posted on 12/08/2005 8:33:34 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: grundle
Just read the title.

Someone ought to survey how many of the "poverty stricken" have personal Internet access and accounts. I firmly beliueve THAT too would be shocking!
3 posted on 12/08/2005 8:33:56 AM PST by nmh ( Intelligent people believe in Intelligent Design (God))
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To: grundle

Let them touch those things....


4 posted on 12/08/2005 8:34:06 AM PST by ncountylee (Dead terrorists smell like victory)
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To: gondramB

This is obscene.

How dare they spend hard earned money of OTHERS like THIS.


5 posted on 12/08/2005 8:34:51 AM PST by nmh ( Intelligent people believe in Intelligent Design (God))
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To: grundle
The Inalienable Right to a Remote

And WiFi! Don't forget WiFi!

6 posted on 12/08/2005 8:35:50 AM PST by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: gondramB
I have seven televisions....

I only have 4.

I demand 7

7 posted on 12/08/2005 8:37:19 AM PST by Graybeard58 (Remember and pray for Sgt. Matt Maupin - MIA/POW- Iraq since 04/09/04)
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To: nmh
Unbelievable. My job was in jeopary due to layoffs last year. The first thing that I would have cut, should I have been out of a job, was my cable. Along with my cell, hi-speed internet, and any other 'conveniences' that I have.

Where in the constitution does it say 'The right to Cable TV'.

8 posted on 12/08/2005 8:37:57 AM PST by wbill
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To: nmh

Just to clarify, you did realize I was being sarcastic, yes?


The government shouldn't even be forcing us to get rid of analog TV's much less spending billions to subsidize it. This is just corporate welfare for the content producers who want to stop people from being able to save and replay TV.


9 posted on 12/08/2005 8:38:10 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: grundle
If this country didn't officially surrender in the "war on terror" back in the summer of 2003 -- when the same U.S. Congress that couldn't agree on funding authorizations for the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan somehow garnered unanimous support for a Federal law protecting us from telemarketers -- then I'd say this pretty much makes it official.
10 posted on 12/08/2005 8:38:37 AM PST by Alberta's Child (What it all boils down to is that no one's really got it figured out just yet.)
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To: grundle
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.

There's no reason why that fortune gained by auctioning off the old analog airwaves cannot be used to defray the costs of conversion to digital. If the gov't is going to make money by this, it should be returned to the citizens.

11 posted on 12/08/2005 8:38:54 AM PST by jude24 ("Thy law is written on the hearts of men, which iniquity itself effaces not." - St. Augustine)
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To: grundle

What an obscenity.


12 posted on 12/08/2005 8:39:06 AM PST by sauropod ("The love that dare not speak its' name has now become the love that won't shut the hell up.")
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To: nmh

Not to mention cel phones...or trips to nail salons.


13 posted on 12/08/2005 8:39:24 AM PST by Sometimes A River (Your hands and feet are mangoes, but you're gonna be a genius anyway)
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To: gondramB

Wow!

And I thought I was overboard with 6 TV's!


14 posted on 12/08/2005 8:40:09 AM PST by najida (Cruelty, mockery, ridicule.....the weapon of bullies.)
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To: grundle

Hey, all you have to do in DC is drive around and check out the new cars in the lots of government subsidized apartments. Why don't they write about this?


15 posted on 12/08/2005 8:40:12 AM PST by WKUHilltopper
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To: Graybeard58

" I only have 4.

I demand 7"


:)


16 posted on 12/08/2005 8:40:15 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: najida

"Wow!

And I thought I was overboard with 6 TV's!"

I believe the other way to treat ADD is with information overload. :)


17 posted on 12/08/2005 8:41:36 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

Twenty minutes into the future...


18 posted on 12/08/2005 8:42:02 AM PST by walkerk
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To: nmh
How dare they spend hard earned money of OTHERS like THIS.

They have to buy votes somehow.

19 posted on 12/08/2005 8:42:56 AM PST by MichiganConservative (Government IS the problem.)
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To: grundle

"63 percent of households below the poverty line) already have cable or satellite service."

Are these the starving children we were going to be innundated with after welfare reform?

Maybe we should provide pizza delivery too.


20 posted on 12/08/2005 8:44:15 AM PST by Pessimist
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