(This somehow leads to the conclusion that government services are bad.)
The problem Republicans (in general) have with government-run businesses is not that they operate at a lower cost and so thwart competition, but that they seem to operate at a lower cost because they run on tax dollars rather than on paying customers. Combine that with the fact that the government is not incentivized to make the business profitable and you have a lot of wasted resources used to provide a service that isn't any good but is so cheap to the end user (not to the taxpayer) that it's impossible to compete.
Whether this model of government-run systems is accurate is open to debate, but it's not helpful to set up straw men.
In light of this new budgetary crisis created entirely by private business one of their attempts to generate revenue was to sell merch. For a short time you could buy an Official USPS Outfit Dog Costume for example, and it was actually working. Republicans saw them doing that and passed regulation saying no you can’t sell merch or do anything outside delivering mail.
The post master general at the time said fine, if we can’t raise money other ways then we need to raise rates. Guess what republicans did. They told them to piss off. After kneecapping the usps they just pointed at them and used them as an example of bad government which they themselves caused. Classic “starving the beast”
The narrative republicans have around government inefficiency is either wrong or entirely self inflicted. The USPS is just my favorite example.
And if the republicans actually cared they’d propose alternatives and be active in the legislative process with an intent on servicing the “average” American. Trying to ban municipalities federally does nothing but obstruct and protect their corporate funders. That is unacceptable
Try arguing with what people actually say instead of making a strawman of some Facebook meme.
The Democrats could just let the post office be privatised then run their own, on the side, out of to the Democrat HQ. It'd give them an electoral edge delivering pamphlets too.
The reason they can't do this is because the post office, fundamentally and inescapably, doesn't generate enough revenue to justify running it the way they want to. The Democrat voters don't want to bear the cost of the service they want. And the Republicans have noticed this.
if it's self inflicted, then it's not wrong. the fact that they can hamstring important services/bills for purely political reasons and still get away with it at the polls is a great example of how perverse incentives in government lead to mismanagement. if you want to persuade me that X government service will be run efficiently, you need to first convince me that a certain mainstream party will not be able to sabotage it.
I grew up (and still live and work) in a forever-red conservative state. My dad was a glutton for conservative political news, so I grew up immersed in Fox News, Hot Air, Instapundit, Glenn Beck, Drudge Report, you name it. I'm still surrounded by conservative commentary, both educated and ignorant, at every social function I attend.
In all my years of exposure to conservative thought, I have not once read or heard someone say that their concern with the government doing a task is that they'll do it too well. Where do you hear it?
In fact, the Republican perspective is the opposite; that government-provided options will be invariably be worse value for money - this is why Republicans favor privatization.
I think the Republican objection is to general revenues being used to operated a subsidized Internet service.
If that is what you mean by "government-supported", then there is a reasonable argument to be had about whether forcing everyone to pay for the municipal option through taxes really results in a fair competitive landscape for private providers.
It’s easy to champion crap when everyone else is paying for it :p
FFS that’s not why republicans have problems with the government services. The issue isn’t that government doesn’t have to make a profit, it’s that it doesn’t have to be sustainable at all (i.e. it doesn’t even have to bring in enough money to support itself unlike a non-profit).
Additionally, nobody is afraid the government is going to be “better quality”. That’s not the case in most markets where the government operates.
The concern is that the government can operate a service financially unsustainably and and offer a shitty service for so cheap that it destroys the market for better services.
A government-funded high-speed deployment of 20mbps to the house that goes out for an hour during the night and occasionally disconnects for a few seconds throughout the day that only costs $2.99/mo will destroy the competition, run a deficit, and people will have worse service because of it.
When you take someone's money by threat of violence under the premise that doing so is a net positive for society you have a much greater obligation to pursue that result and sustainability is one of many considerations when it comes to whether or not something is a net positive for society.
You're a hypocrite, picking and choosing your argument to suit your position.
The same thing will happen to you if you don't pay your taxes or don't pay back your credit card debt.
And the extremely unlikely end result, jail, is exactly the same for both public and civil debt.
And that's the trouble with these stupid arguments. Not only are they childish extremes, anyone using them are all just massive hypocrites who want to pillage the commons for their own gain and have the rules always work in their favour, conveniently different when it comes to reining in monopolies, or using their excessive wealth to force others out of business, it all depends on which side they stand to gain most money out.
Then they just flip their argument on its head to justify their privileged position, which is maintained by a threat of violence.
Setting aside that obvious gaff, you’re comparing individuals being prevented from stealing people’s property to the government being allowed to. It doesn’t really make any sense.
Because it’s not tax payer money being squandered. How is that so hard to grasp?
Rich people run out of money making stupid bets. The federal government does not.
The “unfairness” is simple. You regulate the entity who runs your muni fiber operation, and if they don’t meet your metrics you’re measuring success by, you replace them (whether that’s internal folks or an org contracted to provide services).
TLDR Ramp muni fiber deployments with rigorous operational oversight as a requirement.
What you can't do is pretend that private broadband companies would be competing with municipal broadband on equal footing.
What is a requirement is acknowledging the unequal footing.
I had assumed we all felt comfortable using “public/private” as a shortcut for all of these differences, but am learning that is not necessarily shared. In terms of moving the discussion forward, what were you hoping to achieve by pointing out some of these facts?
No they won’t. Public projects can be setup to require that they are revenue neutral or positive.
The municipality provides the fiber network. All ISPs rent dark fiber, local loops, wavelengths or bitstream access on equal open access terms.
All on equal footing and equal terms.
Given how many people actually have multiple options in the last mile, it’s not a natural monopoly.
So in reality I have a choice of two wired providers. Imagine how great our food would be if the only restaurants available were either Burger King or McDonalds. What a competitive marketplace!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
It might not be limited to just one for all markets, but two choices isn't very competitive due to the massive infrastructural costs and other barriers of entry (e.g., rights of way). Also, my current residence is an example where there actually is competition. As pointed out above, just because the FCC says there's 2+ broadband providers they're including two satellite providers. So a lot of those 3 provider places are really single wireline providers.
Once again, is a market where all restaurants are either McDonalds or Burger King an example good competition?
I have a neighbor that refuses to use running water. Should the infrastructure be routed around their property?
Should they be forced to use running water?
They have the money to do it, but prefer refilling the 5 gallon jugs.
If a city provides any service: water, sewer, broadband, from property taxes, its going to be really really hard for any company to compete with that.
So you can make the case for municipal broadband, but don't pretend that private ISPs are going to compete with it.
The UK does not have any low cost healthcare providers because you can’t compete with a tax payer funded organisation.
Now, do government services tend to be better? That’s another question.
Republicans argue that government run programs are filled with waste, excess, and decreased output b/c they don't have a profit motive. That was the case with Soviet manufacturing operations, Chinese farming, and the US Veterans Affairs Hospitals. The Soviets could never get the right products when they were needed b/c manufacturing decisions where made from a centralized location, not by the people that needed certain goods. China used to control farming, until one day they had the bright idea to let the farmers control farm output. Chinese farming production has increased by multiples of it's government mandate levels. The VA Hospital system is the worst healthcare system in US, in terms of quality of car and lead time for an appointment. And the US Government doesn't cover military connected injuries at non-VA Hospitals.