Republicans Kill Popular FCC Program That Made Broadband Affordable for the Poor | Hacker News Reader

Republicans Kill Popular FCC Program That Made Broadband Affordable for the Poor

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37 pointsrntn52 comments

This program was not for the "poor". I know because I got this discount, and I do not need it at all.

A program can be intended to help the poor and also create situations where people who have less need / no heed for help might be included. The world is complicated and sometimes it's easier and cheaper to allow this versus the kind of investigation, data analysis, and administrative overhead needed to more accurately target the benefit.

My family is at least 4x the poverty level income.

If you're in the US, this is still relatively poor. Not to be insulting to your family at all, just my opinion that the official Poverty Level criteria is ridiculous compared to actual cost of living in most places in the US.

Yes there is some truth to this. But I live in a State with very low cost of living compared to others. If I lived in Los Angeles on this income I might be in trouble.

Just to make sure I understand—you're saying that because your family, which is 4x the poverty level income, got this discount, and did not need it, you believe that this program did not help people under the poverty line?

Or is it that because your family, which is 4x the poverty level income, got this discount, and did not need it, you believe this program was not meant to help people under the poverty line?

Which is to say, can you make your point more precisely?

The second one - it's not meant to help the poor only. They just use that language to make it more popular. It should be more difficult to qualify for this program, such that people well over the poverty level like me would not receive it.

What's the rate of error you're willing to tolerate in such a system, and what does it cost to achieve that rate?

There is a breakpoint in those numbers where it becomes cheaper to allow some error.

It's not cheaper to allow error when the error is the only thing driving excess cost.

What evidence do you have that erroneous benefits are the only thing driving excess cost?

Do you feel that correcting the errors can be done with no cost whatsoever?

We can argue about where that break point is, but the break point absolutely exists. There is a level of verification / enforcement that will cost more than what you're getting back through reduction of erroneously distributed benefits.

Congrats to this thread for intelligently considerately tugging at the thread here.

I have such a hard time staying so level. It's so obvious to me what a a benefit internet connectivity is to this nation. Giving families access will set people on far better paths, will have economic returns for the nation. The costs here seem not bad. I'm definitely not worried about a couple arguably less deserving people getting access, especially given the relatively minor pay-out involved. It seems obviously not worth it to care so intensely about some borderline cases of oh you make $62k now (or whatever), sorry you are cut off now.

Ideally we would be figuring out how to make connectivity a public utility, as so many municipalities have done over the world, greatly reducing cost and increasing speed. But in America we keep having to pay businesses to do things at enormous costs, protect their absurd profit margins, because in part there's so much fear & angst around government & public ownership.

Yeah, it's very simple, just lower the income requirement. There is no cost to it at all.

> They just use that language to make it more popular.

I agree that sometimes issues are framed that way to get sympathy for a program’s beneficiaries, but I think it’s probably a bad tactic (from a marketing perspective) and an even worse move (from a policy design perspective) when programs are specifically designed to benefit the poor only.

The problem is that there are a lot of people who don’t like to think of themselves as “moochers”, or as in need; they have a reflexive negative attitude toward “welfare recipients”. Better to just make the programs universal, and to advertise them as universal; when everybody benefits, so do the poor, but it’s no longer a wedge issue, it’s just something we’re proud of that our society does. People who go to public school are just normal people. Yes, public school happens to benefit the poor. The fact that rich people can also send their kids to public school is not a problem, though, and it would hurt public school to frame it as something for the poor.

Yeah I agree with this. I'd prefer a society of mostly "self-reliant" people, but those days have long passed. We live under a welfare state, and we pay so much in tax that we might as well get some free services out of it.

Unfortunately, the main recipients of government welfare in this country are the big government contractors. The rest goes to the Ponzi scheme known as Social Security. So there's no money left for anyone else. Furthermore, the money that does go out is all borrowed, which we have to pay back with interest. We are so screwed.

Yes, you don't understand. We get it.

There's also the argument that your taxes paid for it so you're entitled to it too. Hence why Paul McCartney gets a monthly senior's bus pass in the UK.

Its also cheaper to "dispense" it universally as you don't have to hire bureaucrats to means test if you're entitled to it.

The problem with politicians on both sides of the aisle is they seem steeped in Ideological thinking rather than logical thinking. This I think is a sign of decline.

Yeah I think there's a great argument to be made for that. I wish all my tax money went to stuff like this. But in that case it's not a benefit for the poor, it's a benefit for the taxpayer. It's the false advertising that I take issue with.

What was your household income and how many occupants?

Over 100k, 2 parents and a baby. But the baby came in December.

I'm no expert (and couldn't find income ranges) but on the calculator I believe the cut off for a family of 4 is $60K (it varies state-by-state). There are also other eligibility options.

Source: https://verify.affordableconnectivity.gov

My ISP sent me an email and invited me to apply, so I did and was accepted. And yes, I filled out the form accurately.

So you don’t qualify for the program according to the guidelines but it was still given how?

I have no idea. My internet provider asked me to apply, so I did and was accepted. And no, I did not falsify my income.

FCC page with updates rather than this jumbled article of every other word linked:

https://www.fcc.gov/acp

Why none of their releases are in HTML I have no idea

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-formal-notice-april-...

It seems like with all the many billions that have been spent on various rural/universal access/subsidy schemes over the past decades we literally could have run fiber to every building in the United States by now lol

But that wouldn't have allowed Comcast and AT&T to continue their duopoly dance to the tune of record profits as easily.

It's honestly past time to start regulating Internet as a public utility. Look at the municipalities that have public Internet (Chattanooga, TN is the big one here but there are others) and the speed, quality and customer satisfaction is through the roof.

They should just allow PG&E to merge with Comcast. All these problems would be solved by the cpuc. Why don’t the political partisans want easy answers like that?

More often than not, state and local government regulatory capture/government approved monopolies affect broadband availability way more than corporate interest.

Comcast is literally the only option at my complex.

Apparently Google Fiber is available but the steps to get it installed require a lot of sign-off from entities that aren't available or don't care.

I don't live in the US although I've been there many times and I've even worked there at times yet I still cannot understand why the country is deliberately tearing itself apart on matters like this. If you want to alienate one section of one's community then this is a surefire way of doing it.

Why is it that Republicans so despise and revile the poorer sections of their community? Don't they realize the actual damage they're doing to their country by fracturing its cohesiveness?

It's not just the republicans doing it it's our entire government.

In this case, it's literally Republicans.

They don't consider themselves to be in community with poor people.

Ha, someone upvoted my comment and then it disappeared in a second. To the outsider this says a lot. :-)

The United States of America is more of a corporation than a country. Would you offer support for people who aren’t your customers?

People who don’t donate to the party, who can’t organize worth a dang to vote you out, well, they are unimportant and programs for them should be dismantled.

There is no way to ask this question here without it devolving deep into politics, but here we go.

Republicans don't have policy to run on. They pander to their base, while also laughing behind their back [1]. Their base votes for them because these representatives appeal to their feelings, even though the people they vote for are actively harming them (red states are finally, begrudgingly, adopting Federal Medcaid expansion funding because they have workforce shortages [2]).

Because of the electoral college, there is no way to fix this for presidential elections [3] and rural America is heavily overrepresented congressionally. States with resources can provide for their own citizens (California is the world's fifth largest economy, for example), rural America will continue to slowly die a slow death as young people leave for opportunity [4], leaving behind those with oversized voting power.

Your options are leave the parts of the country in decline, leave the country, or stay in decline. It's not great [5].

[1] https://www.salon.com/2024/03/05/-the-media-should-stop-trea...

[2] https://www.kff.org/affordable-care-act/issue-brief/status-o...

[3] https://demcastusa.com/2019/11/11/land-doesnt-vote-people-do...

[4] https://stateline.org/2021/08/10/shrinking-rural-america-fac...

[5] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00027162211070061

>Their base votes for them because these Reps appeal to their feelings, even though the people they vote for are actively harming them.

You need to continue the logic here: So the democrats in shining white armor are here to help them out because they know better. This further antagonizes the republican base because worse than being destitute is to be dependent on government handouts.

On the united states being united: We've had a civil war. The big mistake a lot of folks make when looking at the united states is looking at them in a cohesive way. We aren't, we don't share common values, and only share laws that permit a common and efficient market (which includes defense and foreign policy.) Folks mostly choose to live in Missisippi/Texas vs Massachusetts/California. The social benefits and zeitgeist are very different and America is big enough to offer both styles of living.

I appreciate the assist, these are complex issues, and there are always a lot of points to unpack.

When Hillary Clinton ran for office, and said they were going to kill coal, lets see the entire quote:

> Clinton did tell a town hall audience in Columbus, Ohio in March that "we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." But that was part of a longer answer about the need to help blue-collar workers adjust. "We're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people," Clinton said. "Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories. Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on."

These people didn't want to hear that, because of the point you mentioned. They are angry and sad at their position, and they don't want help; they want a history that no longer exists. "We're going to bring coal back!" You cannot fix deeply held identity and beliefs with policy [1]. Also, it is a long slog to convince people it is okay to ask for and receive help, even government help. Like, take the help, government is all of us helping you.

[1] To be frank, I don't think you can fix identity and deeply held beliefs except through generational turnover and firewalls through boundaries, but I am open to citations if anyone can provide them.

A few corrections:

1 - Congress makes laws, not the President (although he signs them).

2 - Congressional members are elected directly, not by the electoral college.

3 - The electoral college is not impacted by whether people are rural or urban. [0]

States can always choose to apply subsidies themselves. They all have different tax rates already [1], so subsidies are easy if they want [1].

[0] - https://www.270towin.com/content/split-electoral-votes-maine...

[1] - https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/wireless-taxes-cell...

Thank you! I have made edits to correct and refine the idea I was attempting to communicate.

I've only read one of your links so far but I thought I'd better jump in and add this point. What the US does both at home and with its foreign policy has a profound effect on many of us—its allies—yet we have no vote to help change things (sometimes I think we ought to become an extra state to rectify this).

Many supporters of the US, myself included, cringe at news like this. We watch in horror in an era when we need a strong and cohesive US more than ever.

This is remarkably clear thinking and serious analysis. Thank you for the insightful scholarly contribution!

Thank you for the kind words, I appreciate it.

It costs more money to service these customers, not profitable and that is all that matters to the indignant domestic terrorists. It fuels their anger, and all they want to do is be angry and not solve problems, and also to break systems that fix problems. A lot of the problem is that we have too many people that were denied opportunity or services that could have made them not pieces of shit. And now they fight tooth and nail to make sure that the system makes more people that are fucked over just like them. Stockholm syndrome kinda. Also makes sense when you look at whether they can read or not:

Nationwide, on average, 79% of U.S. adults are literate in 2022.

21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2022.

54% of adults have a literacy below sixth-grade level.

21% of Americans 18 and older are illiterate in 2022.

Low literacy rates end up costing Americans up to $2.2 trillion every year.

https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/literacy-statisti....

Republicans are just ideologues, or for the current crop of MAGA Republicans, nutjobs with no discernable ideology.

You get the same in Europe with the far right parties, it's just that they don't share power.

I can speak as someone who lives in the US and in a state that has a republican super majority in our government. Without making this an issue specific to republicans, the US two-party government often creates an citizenry who views elections as a zero-sum game. One where one side wins and therefore the other must lose. Increasingly, republicans are attempting to foster an environment where the larger, democratic cities are "the problem" and therefore legislate to "punish" them by removing things like broadband for the poor.

Part of this is because the new GOP is mostly rural voters and they generally don't benefit from city investments. But part of it is to make a political point. Again, they only "win" when the other side "loses." Democrat politicians will do this too, but often not as much (in my experience) and often with less punitive motives. For example, killing coal plants wasn't punitive, but it ended up hurting a large section of rural economy that depended on the mining of coal for a living.

Coal mining represents a very small part of the American and rural economy. It was simply used as a wedge by wealthy Republicans to divide Americans.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/215790/coal-mining-emplo...

Arby’s employees more people than the coal industry.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/31/8-sur...

class war is nothing new. elites generally alienate and isolate the poor, as their interests seldom converge and are often opposed.

Part of the reason is also a cope. That the nature of wealth under late-stage neoliberal capitalism exacerbates to such a prolific extent poverty, strife, homelessness and other maladies of the impoverished is a very distressing concern. For quite some time wealthy elites have coddled themselves with the tutelage that "poor people are poor because they are lazy." Television, radio, and internet all have elite points of presence to reinforce this propaganda in various consumable forms. Recognizing and reacting to wealth disparity in the west with anything more than a casual nod could lead to the wholesale downfall of the neoliberal castle that so many elites have build over the past forty years.

"kill all the poors" policy in the words of the venerable Mitchell and Webb show is largely a regression to feudalism from whence capitalism came. its the manifestation of an acute overdose of capitalist elites "copium." a cut on the nose to spite the face if you will.

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