Quote :

"December 8, 2005 A Not So Novel Way to Spend $3 Billion By George Will WASHINGTON -- 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. Why is this a crisis? Because, although programming currently is broadcast in both modes, 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. 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. Now, the hardhearted will, in their cheeseparing small-mindedness, ask: Given that the transition to digital has been under way for almost a decade, why should those who have adjusted be compelled to pay money to those who have chosen not to adjust? And conservatives who have not yet attended compassion re-education camps will ask: Why does the legislation make even homes with cable or digital services eligible for subsidies to pay for converter boxes for old analog sets -- which may be worth less than the government's cost for the boxes? Gattuso says defenders of this entitlement argue that taxpayers will not be burdened by its costs because the government's sale of the analog frequencies will yield perhaps $10 billion. Think about that: Because the government may get $10 billion from one transaction, taxpayers are unburdened by government giving away $3 billion with another transaction. Such denial that money is fungible fuels the welfare state's expansion. "

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-12_8_05_GW.html

12/8/2005 11:11:11 AM

that better not pass

12/8/2005 11:13:20 AM

the government just needs to buy everyone a 60 inch plasma screen tv. i mean we are entitled to have such things.

12/8/2005 11:34:43 AM

The government already does buy the people 60 inch plasma TV's... go to the projects and check in a few.

12/8/2005 11:58:03 AM

so, congress decides that all signals must be digital by a set date

then, they realize (as everyone told them would happen) that some people won't be able to afford these new digital tvs

SO NOW THEY'RE GOING TO PAY FOR THEM

Tell me, ladies and gentlemen, you don't think, maybe, the entertainment industry lobbyists had a hand or seven in this?

12/8/2005 12:05:31 PM

Asshattery everywhere.

Our government is retarded sometimes.

12/8/2005 12:54:01 PM

sometimes?

12/8/2005 5:49:35 PM

we don't have hd tv and i think it's absolutely horrid that the government would consider giving us money for this "defficiency"...someone elect me president

12/8/2005 6:06:18 PM

While it may not seem fair that this small percentage of individuals are suddenly going to lose the ability to watch television, $3 billion dollars for it is a poor use of taxpayer dollars. Just for the poorer population alone, the $3 billion could be spent in so many better ways such as drugs for poor AIDS patients, easing their tax burden, fixing up a few of their schools, patching up social security, or even a pork project that provides them a few extra jobs instead of concerning themselves about whether or not the nation's poor can watch mediocre sitcoms on a Thursday night.

12/8/2005 6:23:45 PM

Quote :

"Tell me, ladies and gentlemen, you don't think, maybe, the entertainment industry lobbyists had a hand or seven in this?"

Bingo. The same reason Fox News doesn't criticise our consumer culture for the "War on Christmas."

12/8/2005 6:26:29 PM

[old]

Citation: http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/22/2310224&tid=129&tid=219

[Edited on December 8, 2005 at 7:36 PM. Reason : Oct 25]

12/8/2005 7:33:18 PM

You folks are missing the other crazy thing about this. A $40 subsidy doesn't take you very far towards paying for an HDTV. Even once manufacturing is hitting on all cylinders, it is at best 1/5 of the price.

12/8/2005 8:56:53 PM

Quote :

"A $40 subsidy doesn't take you very far towards paying for an HDTV."

I think their plan is to provide the $$ for the converter box only, not a new set.

Quote :

"$3 billion dollars for it is a poor use of taxpayer dollars."

Spot on.
I don't think the "Bridge to No-where" is going to cost as much as this boondoggle.

12/8/2005 10:29:17 PM