There’s One Last Shot To Save A Low Income Broadband Program Republicans Are Trying To Kill
from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept
The FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), part of the 2021 infrastructure bill, provided 23+ million low-income households a $30 broadband discount every month. But the roughly 60 million Americans benefiting from the program are poised to soon lose the discount because key Republicans — who routinely dole out billions of dollars on far dumber fare — refuse to fund a $4-$7 billion extension.
As a result, the FCC started informing struggling Americans in April that their broadband bills are all about to jump significantly as the program starts to wind down. There’s apparently going to be a last ditch effort to finance the program in May, but despite the support of broadband providers and a sizeable bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, the funding bill has a long-shot chance at success.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is basically slow walking the funding bill to death because a key component of MAGA types don’t want to pay for the program or give the Biden administration a policy win in an election season.
These are, it should be noted, the same Republicans that doled out trillions in tax breaks to corporations in exchange for nothing (including $42 billion to AT&T alone). They’re also the same Republicans that wanted to give Elon Musk a billion dollars so he could pretend to deliver expensive satellite broadband to some airport parking lots and a handful of traffic medians.
These same Republicans routinely throw absurd gobs of money at all sorts of ideological dipshittery and badly managed corporate handouts. The “fiscal responsibility” stuff is a performance the lazy U.S. press helps the party perpetuate. In reality, it’s just petty obstructionism.
Folks like Gigi Sohn, whose nomination to the FCC you might recall was killed by a sleazy telecom industry and GOP joint disinformation campaign, isn’t particularly impressed:
“Because of political gameplay, about 60 million Americans will have to make hard choices between paying for the internet or paying for food, rent, and other utilities, widening the digital divide in this country,” said Gigi Sohn, a former top FCC official. “It’s embarrassing that a popular, bipartisan program with support from nearly half of Congress will end because of politics, not policy.”
If you care about this sort of stuff, I suspect your lawmakers might benefit from a call.
I wasn’t in love with the ACP. It basically involves throwing billions of dollars at telecom giants so they’ll temporarily reduce high broadband prices — that wouldn’t be high in the first place if they hadn’t spent 30 years lobbying (quite successfully) to defang our regulators and crush all competition. Many of these same companies (like Verizon and Charter) exploited the program to upsell users to more expensive tiers.
But given that both Democrats and Republicans are too corrupt to tackle or even acknowledge the real problem (unchecked regional monopoly, stifled competition, and market failure), this was at least some sort of temporary solution. We actively courted low income Americans to the program, got them used to the benefits of affordable internet during a health crisis, then pulled the rug out from under their feet.
Filed Under: affordability, Affordable Connectivity Program, broadband, congress, corruption, fcc, high speed internet, low income, telecom
Comments on “There’s One Last Shot To Save A Low Income Broadband Program Republicans Are Trying To Kill”
'You had me at 'throwing taxpayer money to large companies', where do I sign?'
All the democrats need to do to save the program is find some way to spin it as corporate welfare rather than a program aimed at helping the poor, the republicans will go from trying to kill it to giving it their full support in a heartbeat.
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It may not work, but if Democrats could spin this as ISPs losing money from poor people having to cancel or downgrade their plans if the bill doesn’t pass, there’s a chance!
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You’re overthinking this.
If Democrats are for it, then Republicans are against it.
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Ah, good catch, I was giving them way too much credit in their motives in not prioritizing their petty, spiteful childishness when it comes to opposing anything they think the democrats support.
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You two need to learn the difference between one and two way streets.
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What about Democrats spinning this as ISPs losing money from poor people having to cancel or downgrade their plans if the bill doesn’t pass, and thus being against the bill because they want ISPs to die?
I’ve had two interactions with ISPs in the last few years.
The first was for my personal home, where we attempted to change from our locale’s ONLY fixed-lined provider’s maximum rate of 80/10 Mbps. We were contacted by a door-to-door salesman for Verizon over their 4G wireless modems. We have always been hesitant to try it, but the speed was triple our current line, and cost the exact same cost. During the talk with the rep, he mentioned in massing that the cost could be reduced even further with the “ACP program” as well. I took one glance at the description and realized it was a subsidy for low income, which did not apply to our family for SURE, so I ignored it. (Postscript Verizon: We dumped it, because after a week or so we started getting disconnects every day that lasted several minutes. We work from home, so a reliable internet is more important than faster speeds)
Later, while setting up Comcast internet for a friend, I was forced to call them to set up the modem. Despite me not mentioning anything about financials and with them in full knowledge that I was a friend and not a member of the house, the phone rep mentioned (again) the ACP to me in their end-spiel. This family probably could qualify for it.
At that point I realized that the ISPs are simply pushing this not for their customer’s sake, but most likely because they get to keep a few extra bucks (I believe the government pays out more to the ISP than the ISP reduces customer’s costs by, so it’s an incentive for them to advertise). Feels pretty icky that ANY money of a customer-based support bill is given to pad the pockets of any ISPs too.
Nailed It
A $30 discount on $100 service that should cost $30.There lies the problem as you have noted so many times and yet…
Also because it makes poor people just a little less desperate, and the Republican party’s whole bag is ensuring there’s a large, desperate lower class.
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Permanent Boondoggle
Subsidies that last too long eventually become permanent entitlements, and they fail to solve the problem for which they were intended. Let’s make sure the temporary assistance program stays that way: temporary.
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Your contempt for poor people and support for the rich fucks is noted, Koby.
Shame we can’t simply make your non-existence permenent.
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Readily doable. Liberals just have to learn to turn a blind eye to fascists being “re-educated.”
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troll
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troll
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copying me isn’t gonna do anything since your defending koby the sex pest who posted revenge porn
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I’m literally suggesting turning a blind eye to any misfortune that might befall Koby.
Literally the exact the opposite of what you’re saying I’m doing.
Literally the exact fucking thing you apologized to me for last week.
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well
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Unfortunately, death threats are criminal, and 74 million people being “re-educated” China-style is… well, something one cannot turn a blind eye on.
China’s doing it on a smaller scale and even Reuters managed to do report on it.
And murder is illegal in, oh, all 192 countries on Earth. So is genocide, unless you’re being backed by either the US or China.
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Not in the US.
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Uh, capital punishment is a different beast.
You might wanna check the criminal codes again. I am very, very sure that murder of any kind/degree is illegal, as is the lesser charge of manslaughter.
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It’s ironic that your first sentence is bang-on for incumbent ISPs, but you still decide to hate on the poor people who benefit from this in the second one.
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“Subsidies that last too long eventually become permanent entitlements.”
You know an awful lot about entitlement…
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“Let’s make sure the temporary assistance program stays that way: temporary.”
But .. but
OMG, that would mean paying employees a living wage!!!!1111
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Yeah, you can tell a lot about a person’s politics when they describe “not changing the law to extend a temporary program past its expiration date” as “killing the program”. If you wanted it to be permanent, why’d you lie about it being temporary in the first place?
This is all moot, of course, because the Democrats aren’t trying to make it permanent either. The proposed funding convenient lasts just long enough for the election. Voters like free money.
Does 40% of America need an extra $360 a year more than the future taxpayers we’re sticking with the bill? No. Those people who do need assistance should receive it in cash, not in the form of a subsidy for purchasing overpriced goods from politically connected corporations.
My ISP is a cooperative and I pay $49.95 for it, 300 MBps symmetrical. Then again, I also live in a state the huge ISPs haven’t heard of, thank all the deities out there. All the states need similar prices. $100 internet is absurd.
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That still sounds pretty expensive. I live in Europe and pay less than that for a 1000/100 connection.
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You probably also enable poor people to see doctors with your taxes. Pleb.
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If poor people in America aren’t seeing doctors, I’d love to know what the 84 million people on MedicAid did with the $800 billion dollars we gave them for exactly that purpose last year…
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Fortunately, our medical system is structured in such a way that even with that $800B in expenditures, we have the lowest life expectancy and worst access to care in the developed world. Medical costs are still the leading cause of bankruptcy.
But go off because you can spout a number with no context. Dumbfuck.
Pro tip: when trying to elicit sympathy for Gigi Sohn, best not to include a quote in which she exhibits a complete lack of honesty about one of the programs she would have administered.
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What’s the dishonesty?
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The bit about forcing people to choose between food and internet access.
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You might find it upsetting that someone pointed it out, but that doesn’t make it “dishonest.”
Capitalism is just indentured servitude 2.0
Nothing changes much, if at all. The peons are still placified with bread and circuses, but the bread is “Wonder”, and we all know the dark side of the carny World.
I don't need no handout
I’m paying $60 a month for a 1,000/1,000 gigabit DSL connection from Ziply Fiber and I’m pulling 957 to 998 in each way over the telephone copper wiring. Even though I was told I could qualify at one time I turned it down. I like to pay for things myself and if there is something I can’t afford to pay for then I don’t get it.
This program is essential to many Americans and must remain securely in place !!!