FCC's Spectrum Auction Approaches $20B in Bids

An anonymous reader writes "After 32 rounds, the FCC has raised more than $18.8 billion in its 700-MHz auction, well surpassing its own early estimates of attracting between $10-15 billion in offers. That's undoubtedly good news for the agency. Since the auction began on Jan. 24, both the FCC and wireless experts have expressed ongoing concerns about meeting those estimates. Once the auction was underway, those worries were compounded by a shaky economic forecast and the possibility of a looming recession."

Comments

Re:FCC '08 Budgetary Resources are $433 Million

[compro01]

As I haven't been following the news very closely, does anyone know where this $20 billion will go? Just like all other government revenue, it'll be put into the general fund under the jurisdiction of congress. The FCC won't get to keep any of it and will have to go ask congress if they want more money.

Re:FCC '08 Budgetary Resources are $433 Million

[Anonymous Coward]

well, $1.5B is surely going to go toward paying for the digital-tv voucher program. that's probably above and beyond the $433M budget you posted.

that still leaves $18B unaccounted for, but it's a start

Re:and yet

[Bombula]

It is important to understand what deficit spending is and the rationale behind it. Deficit spending is borrowing money to pay for government activity instead of paying for that activity with tax revenue. The (highly suspect) rationale is that you don't have to raise taxes to get the same results and can thereby dodge the economic problems associated with higher taxation. By borrowing, the liability is passed on to future tax payers where - according to the theory - the economic growth it has fostered will make the debt easier to pay off. It's like starting a business: borrow money so you can build up a company that will eventually grow enough to pay off the initial debt and then some. The problem is that when you're always borrowing this forms a never-ending cycle that causes inflation and thereby reduces real earnings and purchasing power, so the 'growth' that is fostered shoots itself in the foot. It ends up being a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

So why is deficit spending attractive? For several reasons. Politically, it is easy to sell "lower taxes!" For the political Right, it is also a way to shovel money into the pockets of the wealthy: about 1/3 of the debt is loaned to the government by rich people in the form of verystable investments - T-Bills, bonds, etc - at around 9% interest.

Misses the big story

[barbara_unsimplified]

The current bidding for the C block has NOT stalled at $4.71 billion as the story states. A new bidder upped the bid to $4.74 billion a few days ago. This was made possible because there are 2 ways of bidding for the C block: either outright for the whole block, where the bidding reached $4.71 billion, or for 8 pieces of the block individually. If the cumulative price for the bidding of the 8 pieces exceeds the bid for the whole block, then that bid trumps the whole block bid. The cumulative bid for the 8 pieces now stands at $4.74 billion, which means that the C block is still under contention. Today's latest story from the NYT gives more info on the auction.

Re:and yet

[yanagasawa]

verystable investments - T-Bills, bonds, etc - at around 9% interest. Yes, except last time I looked t-bills were at 2.2% and t-bonds were at 3.6% - stable but, will it keep up with the inflation you talked about?

Re:Great News!

[u38cg]

I don't know if I'm having one of those days where everything is just delightfully funny, but having followed your link there, I came to this page.

Hilarious stuff, well, maybe not. Until you get to the bottom of the page, where you come to this little gem:

How do you make a contribution to reduce the debt?

Make your check payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt, and in the memo section, notate that it is a Gift to reduce the Debt Held by the Public. Mail your check to:

Attn Dept G
Bureau Of the Public Debt
P. O. Box 2188
Parkersburg, WV 26106-2188

20 billion dollars?

[rk]

About 2.5 weeks of interest payments to service the debt.

Re:and yet

[Wilden2003]

Your math is off. Let's make up some numbers. 9% of 3 trillion tax dollars = 270 billion dollars. 270 billion dollars in interest paid divided by the total debt of 10 trillion = 2.7% So based on these numbers, 9% of tax revenue it used to pay the average 2.7% interest rate on the total debt. The interest rate is not 9%, that is just the percent of 'income' (cough) that we are using to pay on the interest on the debt, we've already spent. (By 'we', I mean those idiots in DC.)