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FCC To Halt Expansion of Broadband Subsidies For Poor People (arstechnica.com)
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced today that the FCC will be "dropping its legal defense of a new system for expanding broadband subsidies for poor people, and will not approve applications from companies that want to offer the low-income broadband service," reports Ars Technica. The Lifeline program, which has been around for 32 years and "gives poor people $9.25 a month toward communications services," was voted to be expanded last year under FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. That expansion will now be halted. Ars Technica reports: Pai's decision won't prevent Lifeline subsidies from being used toward broadband, but it will make it harder for ISPs to gain approval to sell the subsidized plans. Last year's decision enabled the FCC to approve new Lifeline Broadband Providers nationwide so that ISPs would not have to seek approval from each state's government. Nine providers were approved under the new system late in former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's term, but Pai rescinded those approvals in February. There are 36 pending applications from ISPs before the commission's Wireline Competition Bureau. However, Pai wrote today, "I do not believe that the Bureau should approve these applications." He argues that only state governments have authority from Congress to approve such applications. When defending his decision to revoke Lifeline approvals for the nine companies, Pai said last month that more than 900 Lifeline providers were not affected. But most of those were apparently offering subsidized telephone service only and not subsidized broadband. Currently, more than 3.5 million Americans are receiving subsidized broadband through Lifeline from 259 eligible providers, Pai said in today's statement. About 99.6 percent of Americans who get subsidized broadband through Lifeline buy it from one of the companies that received certification "through a lawful process," Pai wrote. The remaining 0.4 percent apparently need to switch providers or lose service because of Pai's February decision. Only one ISP had already started providing the subsidized service under the new approval, and it was ordered to notify its customers that they can no longer receive Lifeline discounts. Pai's latest action would prevent new providers from gaining certification in multiple states at once, forcing them to go through each state's approval process separately. Existing providers that want to expand to multiple states would have to complete the same state-by-state process.
Right before your eyes ;)
Where do poor people spend their money?
What money?
See this very article for an example of government's transienceâ"or see Obamacare, which the new administration is trying to pull down.
The only way to get a robust solution is to build one that is self-reinforcing; that is, the only way is to build a solution that is *profitable*, so that there is an incentive to maintain and improve it.
If your solution depends on ideology or is just a way to buy votes for a particular election, then your solution is a house of cards built on a foundation of blowing sand.
You're right. While they're at it they can put money in an HSA.
New President of Broke Federal Government Looking To Reduce Federal Subsidies, News At 11.
WE do.
It's called, TAXES.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
When that "stuff" is a luxury yacht, or three month-long vacations in luxury resorts every year, okay.
When the "stuff" that the poor get less of is the very "stuff" that enables everyone to be more productive, participate more fully in our culture and democracy, find and get better jobs, develop more marketable skills, learn new things, then you're not just being callous and cruel, but also self-destructive and anti-freedom.
Throwing procedural hurdles in front of the disadvantaged is even more salt being rubbed into the open wound.
/. really needs a tl;dr moderation option. Whether it'd be a plus or a minus, I don't know.
Make America Dumb & Poor Again.
I wonder how many Trump voters are going to get aced out of broadband based on this ruling. Seriously, there are no words to describe the pathological in-sensitivity of Trump and his goons.
And keep them off our goddam taxpayer roads?
Fuck you in the ass with Trump's tiny dick.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Let them drink Starbucks!
Seriously, I think local access (rural vs. urban) is a bigger issue than rich/poor. There are lots of free options if you're in an urban area, you only have to expend a little effort.
Think 1930's rural electrification. And, that's coming from a (small "l") libertarian. If ISPs want to make profit from using public resources (RF spectrum, physical rights-of-way), make them build extended networks. Otherwise, let them negotiate with every landowner (including governments big and small) whose property their services cross.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
pay for products and services for those that aren't that lucky. This sucks.
The more stupid shit they do to try and take from the poor while giving to the rich, the more likely it is that they'll get their stupid asses thrown to the curb in the next election cycle. It's like politicians don't understand that poor people vote too.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCulloch_v._Maryland
The lifeline subsidy does not come from your income taxes, but from a fee charged to telephone subscribers. This is used to make sure that poor people can call 911 and can participate in our society sufficiently so that they can get a job, go to school, and make use of government services that were formerly only available by phone or personal visit.
These days, getting a job requires use of the internet and you can't really hang around the library for the entire time you're trying to get work. So, it makes sense to give poor people some basic connectivity.
I believe the actual motivation behind this move is the same one that is behind making it more difficult for poor and disenfranchised people to vote - even though there is no evidence of significant voting fraud in the USA: Poor folks and minorities might vote Democratic. Suppression of the Black vote has historically been an important part of Republican strategy, this is just one of many reports on that issue. Having gerrymandered them into the most odd-shaped electoral districts, it becomes time to make sure they can't get news online or participate in democratic discourse.
Bruce Perens.
For some things, sure. Poor people definitely get fewer Ferraris and lobsters. But poor people definitely get the same public education. I don't see why broadband would not fall into the second category. Especially since broadband can mean edx and youtube based educational videos instead of porn.
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The summary skipped over the major piece of information
âoeTwelve states, from Vermont to Wisconsin, are currently challenging the legality of the FCCâ(TM)s order in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit," Pai wrote. "In my view, it would be a waste of judicial and administrative resources to defend the FCCâ(TM)s unlawful action in court. I am therefore instructing the Office of General Counsel to ask the DC Circuit to send this case back to the Commission for further consideration. And the FCC will soon begin a proceeding to eliminate the new federal designation process."
So the previous FCC took rights from the states, states sued and Pai decided to make sure the rights of the states were returned and he did not have to fight a bunch of lawsuits.
Leaving aside McCulloch v. Maryland, and the other cases about the ability of the government to regulate trusts and interstate commercial entities in general, I would say that "broadband pipe" could easily fit within the definition of a "postal road".
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..."and to provide for the general welfare"...
That clause alone justifies laws. regulations, and taxes aimed to improve the lives of the poor. It makes economic sense too because keeping poor people poor does not benefit the wealthy. A rising tide raises all boats.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
News at 11.
FFS, how did we ever get to this point? How fucked up as a society are we to decide we can prevent the poors from having internet access, and the !poors get every mouse click and website visit get sold to who knows who?
Seriously, dafuq?
The game plan so far has consisted of: 1) Legalize spying and sale of data by ISPs and 2) Squelching attempts to help the poor get access to basic services necessary to working. I wonder what 3) will be? A SOPA, PIPA or ACTA revival? Expanded powers to prosecute people who infringe on intellectual property? New restrictions on the 4th amendment?
PSA to all those who don't seem to understand this: In today's society access to affordable broadband is required for both education and work. You can't do homework or apply for a job without it anymore. Subsidies like this are an investment in the future of this country, my own experience taught me that. I grew up in a very poor household and if not for similar programs I wouldn't have been able to go to college. Instead of flipping burgers for minimum wage I managed to build a solid career for myself and become a productive member of society.
You might RTFA, but you don't RTFC.
Why is this about the current administration and no previous administration? Demonize much based on opportunity? Why does every tax-paying citizen continually have to spend more of their hard earned income subsidizing those that have a lesser income approaching zero? This isn't income redistribution.. this is a tax - they are synonymous irregardless of the loose interpretation. The rest of you broadband-owning elitists can point your fingers at the sun, the moon, your neighbor or your boss but the end result is there are far too many federal laws that continually extract money from the employed to un-burden the unemployed.
If what I've seen here (yes.. you Gravis Zero) if the election was about poor people.. you are misinformed. Most elections messages threaten social security and they threaten Medicare. These are issues that are of concern for the elderly legal citizens because they know where their paychecks come from and have the time to do so.
When was the last time you saw any electoral message threatening welfare/unemployment/food stamps? I challenge you to research the interwebs and the youtubes.. you won't find it.
It seems that there are arse-tons of you that missed the point in high-school economics about the rules of supply and demand.
Why am I continually watching my post-tax income declining with no requisite replacement of services? My post ACA healthcare replacement plan I had to finally commit to this year.. I'm already almost 2k out in co-pays and it was for a planned, preventative procedure. Eight years ago the same procedure.. pre-ACA (and a cheaper insurance plan) my out-of-pocket was $300.
Paraphrasing it... You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it
March 23, 2009 by charliecopeland
“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”
Adrian Pierce Rogers (September 12, 1931 – November 15, 2005), was an American pastor, conservative, author, and a three-term president of the Southern Baptist Convention (1979-1980 and 1986-1988).
Try actually reading the article summary. This affects a tiny number of people and it only affects them until their ISP goes through the process almost every ISP has already gone through. This is a nothing story about who approves some paperwork.
What does it say about your worldview when that worldview leads you to make up phony conspiracy "connections"? Do you want to be a conspiracy nut? Why?
While you are correct that people need access, and that many people need assistance in getting access, the issue should be at the State level as FCC Chairman states. The Federal Government was never intended to be the source of Welfare systems, that is a function of the State.
For some reason, over the last 70 years or so, all social welfare programs have been pushed to the Federal Government. This has caused a massive amount of bloat and comes with an excessive amount of problems. Social Security is a great example of a good idea, but the bureaucracy has completely destroyed the system. Instead of actually saving the money people put in, it has been spent as discretionary funds. There is no money in Social Security, and nothing has been saved since the very early 1970s. People paying in today are the only source of paying people that collect. There is no interest on the money as was promised, and no guarantee that you will get what you are supposed to get. Being 20Trillion in cash debt and 220Trillion in debt when you include entitlements, there is a good chance that you won't get yours.
People should really read the Federalist papers and see where the Founders said power should go and why. They knew that a bloated Federal Government leads to what we have today. Massive corruption, massive cronyism, massive waste and fraud, and it's extremely difficult to remove at that high of a level.
That is not to say that States don't run a risk of corruption, but the corruption at a more local level has numerous benefits. The Federal Government can investigate and charge for corruption at the State level, where they won't touch their own for fear of harming their own budgets. People unhappy with the State Government have more direct control of the elected officials.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The founders wrote the Constitution at a time when words actually meantg something (i.e. before the idiot hippies of the '60s arrived at college and started pretending words had no fixed meaning)
"Regulate" back then meant "to make regular" and when applied to the commerce clause simply meant what our founders made quite clear in their other writings: the federal government has the job of making sure trade between the states is regular (i.e. New York does not trade with New Jersey on more favorable terms than with Delaware). The founders did NOT mean thousands of unelected, unaccountable, essentially anonymous career bureaucrats dictating the details of light bulbs, showers, toilets, cabbage, apples, etc.
"General welfare" meant things that applied to the whole nation but not to any specific individuals. National defense, for example, protects the whole nation but might not protect a specific person. The National parks are there for everybody. The roads are there for everybody. These things can be seen as part of the "general welfare". Free cell phones, internet accounts, health insurance policies, retirement programs, etc are provided to specific individual people, not EVERYBODY generally - these thins are indeed "welfare" but not "the general welfare".
Our founders used the words they used for a reason and no amount of pretending that their writings are some sort of undecipherable mystery makes them so, no matter how eager various interest groups, lawyers, and yes even judges, are to pretend in service of twisted and dishonest agendas.
If a poor person needs to use high speed broadband (they have computers, right?) then they can go straight to the public library and use it. For free.
Because public libraries are funded by money that poofs into existence?
Amen! In fact I have long mocked the founders for bothering to write the rest of the document.
According to that interpretation, everyone has to receive it.
When you say Government, why do you assume everything should be a Federal issue? You do realize that the United States is founded as a Federation of States where the States are supposed to handle the majority of powers. This includes Social Welfare.
Perhaps the moderation is overly done, because while we can agree that Social welfare programs I (and the foundering documents and history) would disagree that the onus should be on the Federal government to provide those programs.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Exactly!! The more poor people have to spend, the more rich people have to spend.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The wealthy would never have signed on if they didn't have a way to increase the despiraty between those who have and those who have not.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The best separation of powers is competition in the market.
The best way to find solutions (that is, the best cooperation) is competition in the market.
At least your parent post didn't rely on logical fallacies.
Yes, for the last 200 years, loons line Mr. Actually have managed to study the law and appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, while men with a deep and serious understanding of the Constitution like yourself have been relegated to posting impotently on internet fora or sleeping in chair of Clarence Thomas.
It's only "unconstitutional" if you ignore 200 years of constitutional jurisprudence.
The biggest barrier to the spread of private broadband is the cost of acquiring right-of-way. But I can envision a government approach (not a "solution" but a major addition of network capacity) that costs ZERO for right-of-way.
Bury fat broadband along the Interstate Highway System, starting with segments that connect major markets. Let there be taps at exits, access to which would be leased to local ISPs willing to lay connecting fiber. Such a National Internet Backbone could pay for itself the way Hoover Dam did.
If you're going to spend public funds on Technology X, infrastructure always bets a subsidy.
EDIT: "...beats a subsidy."
Even as a child playing video games, I saw the stupidity in people belching oral feces like "If everyone thinks walking sucks, you all just need to get up to the gold arena tier, to unlock Fast Travel. Everyone should get up here." Now I'm looking at "Poor people need to stop being poor."
I have a comfortable, fulfilling job that supports my city. And I know damn fucking well what measure of it was "earned" and how much was the cosmic dice. Just being born in the Golden Billion was the first thing I "earned" from the ovarian lottery.
But maybe it takes a bit for the scales to fall - it was a while before I was aware that the people who hired me, my future direct superiors, were pretty much oblivious to all of my credentials, including my degree.
You don't have to be lucky to have a job, just willing.
There are about 6M job openings primarily in transportation, food and professional services, a number that has grown for a few years now and roughly the same number as people currently unemployed, a number greatly exceeding the number of people unemployed for over 6 months. Additionally the rate of people quitting their jobs across the US has increased.
You think with the availability of unemployment income, placement help, free schooling and tax funded on-the-job training, those numbers would have equalized by now. The problem I find, as I know many owners in these businesses starving for workers, is that they are competing with government benefits or their applicants can't even be bothered to show up to work not high or drunk.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
This comment should be framed and nailed to the walls of Congress.
I moved from a big city to a rural area with no broadband provider. Eventually, the mom and pop local cable company went digital, so there's kinda-sorta broadband. A few hundred down, less than a hundred up, $65/month, absurd amounts of downtime or sub-dialup-speeds.
I can manage; I replicate remote servers locally to keep working through outages. But for kids trying to do their homework and people job hunting etc., it's a huge disadvantage. Digital ghetto.
And were born in the... 60's? Maybe a bit earlier. Fact is, social mobility has gone down over time.
no, yes, yes, no
I think it's obvious that soda is a luxury, that a phone is required for 911/social connections/job hunting and that broadband is required for online education/social connections/job hunting.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Yes we can help, by limiting population and forcing capital to compete for labor. No immigrants no Muzzi-wogs no wett-bakkkks. That's a start, but won't help with the lazy, violent and stupid nibbers. Only lots of poor dropping dead fast will help. Or nation-wide tube-cutting among the unable. Can we help them along ?
But poor people definitely get the same public education.
Not even remotely true. Income inequality resulting in public educational inequality is one of the biggest problems in the US today.
But I think your point was that Internet access should be a basic utility (more like electricity or water, which as long as you don't live in Flint, are much less variable than education) which I totally agree with.
They might be earning a living this week.... Next? Who knows eh?
Some 'C' level exec with a corner office in a big city miles away sees that Plant X in State Z is 0.5% more efficient than the plant where they live. So the company closes that plant. The Exec gets his big fat bonus and hundreds if not thousands of former workers now need food stamps.
What price that vote then eh?
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
In The Law :
Read the whole pamphlet; it's stunning.
Re 'If a poor person needs to use high speed broadband"
Think of it from the party political perspective. A party offers a low cost phone account, internet account. Thats some powerful political power to have in each and every poor community.
A low cost internet for poor people can then be used to out reach to voters and ensure they vote for the party that gave them "free" stuff.
This is not about jobs, education. Its about the politics of local communities and offer of more "free" stuff.
If a government wants poor areas to get internet, build a government internet. Just build it to every home in the USA and let every ISP offer services on it.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Cash is an option for my credit/debit card. So why wouldn't it be an option for EBT? Why would the merchant even care?
https://www.google.com/search?...
Are you ?
What makes people "dumb as shit" is the decade-and-a-half of government run indoctrination, together with the self-serving propaganda corporate media subject them to.
The poverty line for a couple is $16000. That's supplemented by numerous government benefits, subsidies, and the EITC. People can afford to buy high speed Internet for that.
What is "disadvantaging" these people is an endless supply of nonsensical government "benefits" that mostly serve special interests. Applying for all the socially engineered benefits idiots like you favor is a full time job for the poor, and it is demeaning and disrespectful.
If there was a problem, then the right solution would be to increase the EITC, not to create more crap like this.
No it doesn't. The "general welfare clause" is widely understood to be limiting what precedes it. That is, it doesn't give government an additional power "to promote the general welfare". Instead it means that the enumerated powers in the Constitution may only be exercised for the purpose of promoting the general welfare (as opposed to the welfare of specific groups).
If it applies to the poor at all, the general welfare clause says that government may not redistribute from the wealthy to the poor, since that doesn't promote the general welfare, but helps one group of people at the expense of another, something that the authors of the Constitution clearly did not want.
Somebody needs a dictionary instead of "Atlas Shrugged".
It’s not possible to make a purchase with a credit card and then return what you bought for a cash refund, no store does this. If you've found one that will, that one is the exception. As for "cash back", at most grocery stores the merchant cannot provide a cash back option for EBT because the software controlling the transaction won't allow it. It can happen at smaller mom and pop stores if they were to charge the card for a supposed food item and then hand the recipient cash instead, but if merchants are caught doing so they face fines and possible imprisonment.
SNAP fraud is typically when someone lies about their income to qualify, trades their EBT credit for a cash value (see above), or just sells their card to another person. It does happen, but it's actually rare. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/us/food-stamp-fraud-in-the-underground-economy.html
Hard to believe, but poor people get hungry too.
Judging from the fact that AC has posted as AC, he knows that he is a piece of shit. People like you really grind my gears. You are so fucking stupid as to think that the poor people are the cause of all your trouble.
God for bid that you help anyone who needs help because there is a chance that someone else will take advantage of it.
Sure, fuckballs like you are fine on spending trillions killing brown people for no fucking reason at all, but spending a couple billion on the poor...oh the horror!!
Sir... Fuck you. Do us all a favor "an hero".
With a large percentage of the 6M jobs, does not supply sufficient salary to live within a commutable distance.
So while there's jobs available, they're unavailable to those who needs them the most.
Yeah, there's no problem, you're right. The Heritage Foundation says the poorest Americans aren't really poor because most of them own a refrigerator. That's really the America we want to be: our president shits in a gold-plated toilet, and our poor people could keep food cold if they could afford both food and electricity. Fucking American dream, right there.
Oh, I forgot. The people with no money or education or health care or jobs should just stop being poor.
I hope your face sloughs off from syphilis.
Your point about education in practice not being uniform is well-taken. Ironically, you then brought up water. Sadly, Flint is less of an aberration than we would hope. More than 17 million Americans have unsafe lead in the water.
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You keep citing the 1934 law. It's been changed a few times in the last 80 years. Most recently in 1996. Here's a key part of the text of the statute currently governing these funds for the last twenty years:
--
telecommunications services shall contribute, on an equitable and nondiscriminatory basis, in a manner determined by the State to the preservation and advancement of universal service in that State.
--
That's the law and has been for 20 years - states direct the program based on their particular needs. New Jersey wants cheap high speed service in the hood, Montana wants usable service in the boonies.
Chairman Wheeler didn't really give a shit what the law said, he was pretty open about that. It's pretty silly to be citing what the law was in the 1930s as if it controls how funds are authorized to be spent today, though. Things have changed since 1934 and Wheeler's attempt to ignore the Congressional appropriation was and is unlawful.
It’s not possible to make a purchase with a credit card and then return what you bought for a cash refund, no store does this
I'm guessing you've never made a return at Walmart then. Every time I've been asked whether I want the refund put back on the card or in cash.
"Credit Card: If the item was purchased using a credit card, any refund is required to be issued to that same credit card. If the original credit card is not present and is not available through scanning the TC number on the receipt, the refund will be processed onto a shopping card/gift card."
http://help.walmart.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/121/~/no-receipt-returns-in-stores-policy
Nowhere is government doing any less - it's subsidizing a service for the poor same as before. It's just made it MUCH harder for new providers to offer the subsidized service.
This is a flagrant attempt to use government bureaucracy to protect entrenched businesses by making it much harder for new companies to compete. This is, in fact, a republican government doing the EXACT thing it always accuses democrats of doing. Turns out you can do it just as easily by repealing regulations as by creating them - all you have to do is ensure you end up with a situation where the burdens involved in entering a market is massive, and you give a huge bonus to those already in there.
When a regulation ENSURES poor people also gets service, or makes sure your water is drinkable - then the trade-off is worthwhile. When it actually REDUCES the availability of services to the poor (like this does) then you have all the usual problems of deregulation (the reasons democrats and progressives tend to oppose it) but you don't EVEN get the supposed benefits of more competition in the market.
Basically - Pai has, once again, found a way to screw Americans with the worst of all worlds as an outcome. The problem with Ajit Pai is, he is just as evil as anybody else Trump has appointed - but unlike the rest of them, he is actually competent. He doesn't just have evil ideas, he is capable of executing them.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
It's about time someone finally stood up to the poor people. Thank God for Pai and his ISP cronies, once again making America safe from anything left of Ayn Rand.
Imagine the trouble the poor people could cause if they actually broke out of the debt-swamp?
I think you really need to know that subsides like this don't help people. I know people on all sorts of aid and what little money they make waste it on liquor, smokes, drugs and unhealthy food. They go out and buy the most expensive iPhone but can't feed or cloth their kids. Sure, support them in better ways targeted at what aid they get goes for more productive means. Having cheap internet is not a right. Schools offer internet, many business do, most public libraries do. I don't think provided crutches for people who otherwise could stand on their feet is helping them become productive citizens who could pay for their own internet.
The right wing hates the poor and anything that aids the poor they try to ruin. I suspect that the poor may have responses that nobody will like. There are numerous ways to create internal enemies. You see those nasty poor people simply refuse to crawl into a corner and suffer and die. The tend to act out. It may be one hell of a hot summer.
This. The money for this program comes from the Universal Access Fee that we all pay on every telephone or internet connection already. The Governnent already forces us to pay the money... but the biggest ISPs are the only ones that get to KEEP it now. So instead of competition for lowest-cost providers, your local big telco just keeps their cut and "offers" more expensive services to poor people because they've got the state legislature locked up.
Why would right-of-way matter when talking about connectivity for poor people? Poor people need cell phone towers, not lines to their apartments.
The poor people where I am, once they get below a certain level of income where having a car is a big problem, all tend to use a cell phone for internet and nothing else. Likewise they move around more often than those with higher income... take that to the extreme of the homeless guy that has a phone in hopes of getting a job. Cable right of way in his neighborhood is completely irrelevant.
If there is a program to help those people on the internet, there would be help to pay for data plans or upgrade the phone.
Sure, and don't they even get free 4G in their Teslas?
On the other hand,if you're poor, it may not be easy to buy a lot of coffees.
Just when I think Trump couldn't sink any lower...
If a government wants poor areas to get internet, build a government internet. Just build it to every home in the USA and let every ISP offer services on it.
Yep, that's exactly how the government ensured that everyone had electricity and phone service.... The practice of subsidizing corporate build-out of universal services is pretty well established. And while I'm sure there were people who argued and fought against mandates to get electricity and phone service to every residence hopefully we can all now agree that it is good for everyone to have electricity and phone.
But like so many other things we just keep repeating the same patterns of behavior
Using Starbuck's internet without buying something is a felony. Incredibly rarely enforced. But if it is, the consequences are awful. "Enforcement" of silly laws is something we generally only do to poor people.
The poverty line for a couple is $16000.
Where I live that wouldn't even cover rent for a modest dwelling in a suburban satellite town.
Your premise is that the government does "everything". Dumbass premise. The rest of your post therefore doesn't matter.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Your rural access of a few hundred down, less than a hundred up is faster and costs less than my FTTH service. Sounds like we suburbanites have subsidized enough of your rural lifestyle already. Want better technology? Then pay for it or move into a population center.
WE do.
It's called, TAXES.
You're claiming credit for bombing civillians in Syria and Doctors without Borders hospitals in Afghanistan? That's awful - I don't use the /. foes list much, but that's a gimme.
Those people who realize they are extorted into funding an occupying, illegal government that uses the Constitution for toilet paper I can abide.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I know there will be a lot of back and forth as to denying access to the poor, etc. This is more about making it harder for ISPs to get the money than it is for poor people to get internet service. The system was being abused, severely. As an ISP myself, I have seen other ISPs abuse the lifeline system by putting wireless into nursing homes on the back of a single broadband connection (not even their broadband because they are an ISP in name only, they have no real gear) but collecting the $10/mo off every single patient in the nursing homes, including those not using the internet because they are in a coma. If that wasn't enough they also were profiting off lifeline by providing 'phone service' to every resident as well and collecting that money when they only pulled in a single T-1 to the facility and oversubscribed those ports 20:1. So $400/mo for the ATT voice T-1 with 24 DS0 channels, and $120/mo for a TWC broadband connection. ~300 residents for phone and internet.that they dont even maintain the equipment for. It is disgusting to know that all of our tax hikes are bankrolling his shit. His entire company is a fake company on paper with 4 employees and he's done this with over a dozen nursing homes. The nursing homes sign off on it because they share in the profits (by way of getting free internet/phone service for the business side of things as a byproduct).
A National Internet Backbone could reserve a certain fraction of tap points to give away to local volunteer organizations willing to lay their own connecting fiber. This would bring service in to small communities that the major cable providers don't care about and neglected poor areas.
If youre unemployed you have plenty of time to go to the public library to "job hunt"
Instead of subsidizing broadband to people's homes redirect that funding to libraries and schools. Give them as much broadband access as they want. That way it's available to everyone.
Why should we subsidize Netflix and pron for anyone?
Given originalism, we'd not have women's suffrage or racial equality, so much for originalism.
That statement is a load of crap put out by propagandists and ignores the Constitution. Article 5 was put in because the Founders understood that there were still adjustments that had to be made. As an easy example, which is also backed by the Federalist papers 3/5ths of a person was not the end goal. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Was the sought conclusion. The majority of the founders did not want slavery but saw that specific concession as the only way to finance the revolution and have support from all 13 colonies.
We do NOT have a Constitutional amendment claiming Welfare should come from the Federal side. Nor would that pass the Supreme Court (unless the court was stacked with progressives who claim the Constitution has no meaning except what the progressives claim it has).
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
You're like a walking talking Onion article.
If you want "internet"...get up off your butts and GET A JOB. NOTHING in life is free. The faster this (USA) nation figures that out, the less free loaders will have. There is a REASON there are signs in parks, not to feed the birds, squirrels etc...because they will continue to come there for the FREE food! Time to kick most of the freeloaders, baby mama/daddy types to the curb, make them fend for themselves instead of mooching off those willing to get up every morning and go to work!
And that's why your views of social policy are completely out of touch with reality.
Besides, another $150/year in subsidies to "the poor" through a complicated, corrupt government program isn't going to make any difference then.
How many slashdot readers WANT to work in transportation or food service?
Is no one going to read my last paragraph?
"this" refers to eliminating the handout and nobody read my comment
And that's why your views of social policy are completely out of touch with reality.
Perhaps. I looked up the local figures for last year, apparently the poverty line is considered to be $12174 for a single person.
> I think the problem that chairman Wheeler was trying to solve was states that attempted to block all provision of broadband service under the universal service rules.
That's an interesting guess, I suppose, but no. For example here is information about California's implementation:
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/CASF/
Obviously you're capable of Googling the other 13 states yourself, but I think you'll find probably all of them, certainly most of them, have broadband programs - programs that make sense for their state. If you think for just a few moments about even one obvious difference between states, population density, I think you'll recognize that the needs in Montana and Wyoming are different than New Jersey and Maryland.
in the whitehouse would give a crap about anyone but himself and people he hopes to make money from? Do you think he became a billionaire by caring about other people, especially people of lower socioeconomic status than himself?
You have almost 4 years to mull it over. Hopefully, you'll learn from your mistake and do the right thing next time.
Unless your definition of the "the people" really means "Californian people" - the election results disagree with you:
http://www.investors.com/polit...
Number of states won:
Trump: 30
Clinton: 20
Trump: +10
Number of electoral votes won:
Trump: 306
Clinton: 232
Trump: + 68
Ave. margin of victory in winning states:
Trump: 56%
Clinton: 53.5%
Trump: + 2.5 points
Popular vote total:
Trump: 62,958,211
Clinton: 65,818,318
Clinton: + 2.8 million
Popular vote total outside California:
Trump: 58,474,401
Clinton: 57,064,530
Trump: + 1.4 million
Trump won more counties than any candidate since Ronald Reagan:
http://alexanderhiggins.com/tr...
The "the people" did vote for Trump. Our country is a Union of independent states. To win the presidency, you must not simply win the popular vote - you must win a preponderance of states. Disenfranchising low population states is how you start a civil war.
Your contention is (a) all communication with a potential employer is applicant driven, (b) there's never time sensitive response and/or libraries are open 24/7, (c) there is a public library a reasonable distance from every American, (d) there are in fact sufficient computers to meet demand at every library, and (e) somehow maintaining a building for said purpose, with hardware and connection, is cheaper than simply forcing companies to not make much/any money off some connections?
I'd question each of those assumptions in turn.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
You're claiming credit for bombing civillians in Syria and Doctors without Borders hospitals in Afghanistan?
Why not? After all governments exist to enforce policy as voted by the people using resources by the people for the people.
By the way I hope you don't drive a car, because every oil company ever has managed to kill workers and significantly damage the environment. Don't buy fuel. In fact if you don't want to resource {insert think you disagree with} then it's probably best to boycot absolutely everything.
Don't let little things like facts get in the way of his preconceived ideology.
There is no inherit right to ANYTHING you mention in your post.. yes the library and public transpo sucks but anything more than that is a luxury.. and certainly not one the rest of us should have to subsidize for the "poor".. yet these "poor" so many of you speak of ALWAYS manage to own a cel phone and plenty of bling. NO ONE is throwing any hurdles at them the REST OF US dont have to also jump over.. people like you are why generational legacies of poor continue to exist.. you make it too easy to be poor in the US. Im all for subsidizing help for people who TRULY need it (disabled, mental deficiency, etc..) but unless you fall into one of those categories.. the ONLY thing stopping you .. is you. You cant swing a dead cat and not hit countless grant and loan programs for the poor to get an education.. and contrary to popular belief birth control is FREE to the poor and the vast majority of clinics in the US.. so you simply have no excuse for your line of thinking other than emotional rhetoric
Wow your single anecdote is the solution to all social policy, huzzah!
That depends on specific local conditions. Newcomers can put up microwave links in many places. Existing telcos can string fiber on existing poles.
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One way of getting cash used by extreme EBT abusers is to buy milk in high-deposit glass bottles, dump out the milk in the parking lot, and return the bottle for cash.
Another, used by small food store owners, is to have a dozen or more EBT cards, and stock their store with food acquired on EBT at a supermarket.
Government charity programs are an ecological niche for crooks and layabouts. Sometimes, they even help the deserving poor, but not often.
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To the extent that you live off taxpayer-provided benefits, you are acting as a slave owner.
You do not have a right to my labor, my property, my time, my mind, or my life.
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I know several people who employ "low-income" individuals and they don't even own a computer. They use their cellphones for everything. It's usually faster than whatever broadband they could get anyway. What's the big deal?
How about providers have to offer a 1 or 2 mb solution to anyone who wants it for 10$ a month
love is just extroverted narcissism
Actually, no. One of the favorite foods of EBT abusers is lobster. Once you're making enough to support yourself, lobster is an unjustifiable extravagance.
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Could we have the FCC stop all subsidies? If politicians can't take money from one group of people and give them to another group of people, I think much of the trouble in the country would go away. Much of a politician's power and usefulness goes away if they can't redistribute (by force). Sadly we've given them that power and then we get upset when they don't redistribute in the ways we want.
Phone and cell phone are not the same thing.
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For high-density backbones, fiber always beats microwave. This requires right-of-way, even if strung on poles.
People buy expensive items like baby formula at a supermarket with EBT then sell it to the local quickie mart for cash. There's a whole hidden economy involved in this type of scam.
Wrong, they are the frequently underemployed who are angry and irrational and really really thought tRumpF gave a rat's fuck about them. Now, as he kills them with a thousand cuts and stokes their anger against immigrants instead of their real enemy (the rich), they will continue to follow his bullshit lies. Because thinking critically is not their strong suit.
Only I can judge you.
probably because your chums want to pay $6/hour rather than a livable wage. Fuck you and your "employer" friends. Pay well, give good benefits, treat employees well and you will not have a problem finding good employees. Can't afford that? Get out of business and make room for someone that can start a viable business. Capitalism! Bitch.
Only I can judge you.
Did you really think that Killary? She cared no more than Trump.
Democratic party disenfranchised us by selecting a candidate that was republican lite. We fought back by electing Trump.
Democratic party can reassess and put a real progressive in the race, or keep losing.
There is no word "despiraty", and if there were it would mean "the condition of having had the spirit removed," or perhaps "the condition of having pirates removed."
Nor is there "desperaty", which would mean "the condition of desperation".
Perhaps you mean "disparity", "the quality of being unlike or different".
Spelling matters. It helps give the impression that you know what you're writing about, that you care what you're writing about, that you want people to understand your meaning.
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The general welfare clause occurs in the preamble to the Constitution, and as such only a few phrases precede it.
James Madison, more than any other person the author of the US Constitution, wrote substantially the same thing you did.
The preamble should be understood as a statement of purpose, giving context and adding meaning to the law that follows; the preamble should not be understood as a law in and of itself.
The phrase "general welfare" also occurs in the first paragraph of Article 1, Section 8, Powers of Congress:
Note that this ends with a semicolon. It serves as an introduction to the next several lines, which lines specify the only powers of Congress, and thus the powers which Congress may use to promote the general welfare. Note also that the full phrase is "general Welfare of the United States", meaning the welfare of the country as a whole, although perhaps it could be stretched to mean the welfare of each and every state. It clearly does not apply to units smaller than states, not counties nor cities nor individuals.
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More nearly a century than 15 years.
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This is not an issue of politics.
Did you know that SNAP could be funded almost 100% if the federal government got rid of the home mortgage interest deduction? So who's to say that the "chunk" (which is about $20 per month per person) of your paycheck isn't actually going into the pockets of rich schmucks like me who own a nice house? It amounts to the same thing. The funniest part of it is that my in-laws are my lenders, so the interest is just money that I'm going to get back when they kick the bucket. Thank you for supporting this ludicrous deduction! :)
If I give you $5 for a sandwich, then I must think that I've gotten the better deal, and you must think that you've gotten the better deal; I need a sandwich more than I need that $5, and you need that $5 more than you need a sandwich. Each of us has profited; we have BOTH profited.
Now, how is a sandwich best made? You think it is made one way, but Karl thinks it is made another way; you disagree about how your time and resources should be put into making sandwiches, so each of you decides to bet his own resources on his own way of doing it—that's competition. Then, I come along, and choose to exchange my $5 for one of your sandwiches—the market decides what is the best way to make a sandwich, meaning that our little society as a whole has engaged in cooperation to find the best way to make a sandwich.
Capitalism allows society to organize itself through Evolution by Variation and Selection, and thus to be robust in the face of changing conditions. Under capitalism, it is possible for everyone to profit, and they do so in a way that allows each individual to manage his own destiny and risk aversion.
then you are participating in a "private" endeavor. Linus chose to spend his time and energy working on Linux; that is CAPITALISM; that is a PRIVATE endeavor.
Competition within the market yields variation, and consumer choice yields selection. Evolution by Variation and Selection. You're welcome.
Let's see how well you work without pay.
Your mistake is that you refuse to acknowledge all of the incentives simultaneously. You're not wrong, but you're also not right. Get it?
No, it doesn't. Get it, yet, Einstein?
Well, the amount the government pays to subsidize either of them is the same (exactly the same, not approximately.) So why not let them choose which to use.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
So half of your life you were mooching off other people's taxes in the military and then probably used a GI bill to mooch off your education. And now I'm pretty sure you're spending my taxes that go towards your SS. I think we should revoke your Medicare and SS.
Yeah. Military should be replaced by private contractors on min. wage. No more pensions and GI bill crap to subsidize!
Show me a human who isn't greedy for something. What a joke.
Not to eat though; they resell if for 50% the retail price so they have cash for drugs/whatever.
Hey, a snopes.com article.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
AT&T developed Unix and early network protocols for phone services (along with IBM, Xerox, and numerous other companies). The Government piggy backed on that work and used tax dollars to create ARPAnet. Much of that work (meaning both projects) was done by Universities, but the heavy lifting especially for networking and Unix was private research. (Xerox, AT&T, Texas Instruments, IBM, etc...)
The Internet would have come about regardless of tax payer dollars. You may be able to argue that the process was expedited because of tax dollars, but there is no reason to conclude that the Internet would not exist. In fact, given the amount of proprietary (closed) network protocols of the 80s and 90s, we can say with relative certainty that the Internet would have happened anyway.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Look, this isn't up for debate; this is settled Constitutional law. If you think that the General Welfare clause gives the US government the power to "provide for the general welfare" in general, you're simply a fool.
So? Tax free, that's a lot of money. My own basic living expenses are less than that, including broadband.
I don't give a simple flying fuck about a goddam foe list, so shove that one in the trash bin with the, "You must be gay," manipulative bullshit.
You are dismissed.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I actually did the math on this at one point. Working a 30 hour job at minimum wage is livable for 99% of the country and you can live within walking distance of where you work. Even in NYC/LA/DC this is possible. I went out and found decent places to live in each of those locations and had about $100 in "extra" money left each month. The problem is that most poor people are terrible with their money and spend it on non-necessities and then can't afford the necessities.
They wrote TONS of stuff other than the US Constitution and you can easily get copies and read the stuff. When you read the rest of what they wrote, you are not left with a lot of HONEST doubt about what they meant in the Constitution.
Have you read The Federalist Papers? How about The Anti-Federalist Papers?
Have you read the writings of Ben Franklin? John Adams? Thomas Jefferson? George Washington?
Only a complete moron would think the founders meant "regula" and/or "to rule" in the commerce clause... they were just getting rid of a ruling monarchy who was taxing and regulating everything in plain sight and they were working to assure trade flowed regularly and without tariffs between the states.
Honestly, when lefties read the Constitution and come up with all sorts of lefty whackiness it's like they are reading a copy of some Dawkins book and claiming it's all about how true creationism is.
MANY things apply to the larger population, but not to individuals within that population.
National Defense: The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines defend the nation, but are not responsible if John Doe is killed or his property is destroyed. The military is charged with protecting the whole, but may be required to sacrifice some by not protecting them in order to protect others. John Doe is not suddenly declared a non-American before he is not defended, nor is the military deemed a failure for not defending him. It's a matter of scope.
All American have the right to enter Yellowstone National Park. The government is under no obligation to transport them to/from the park, and can and does refuse to allow certain individuals to enter in certain situations.
All Americans are free (as in freedom) to use the airlines to travel (at their own expense), except for the ones on the "no fly" list.
I'mnot going to type further, but any reader who spends more than three seconds thinking about it will think of a huge number of federal government related things that apply to all citizens generally, but from which some specific people are excepted.
nowhere in the Constitution did they empower the federal government to take money from one citizen and give it to another in order to balance the scales.
In fact, they had plenty of opportunities to do that very thing at their time and chose not to. They left that sort of thing (both local civil services and charities) to the states and to the people themselves. Ben Franklin, for example, founded both a fire department and a hospital, setting examples that spread to other states and cities. Most gave to charities (generally run by religious orders then) to help the unfortunate. Never did any of our founders use the federal government to transfer money from one group to another group, by income level.
Our poor people are poor because of of selfish pricks and idiots like you.
As for the syphilis part, you are projecting; it has obviously rotted your brain.
Minimum wage around here is over $11 and going up to $15 next year. Even McD is offering $15 for an entry level employee already, $20-25/h for a full time manager with the only prerequisite to be able to pee in a cup once in a while. You can purchase houses here for $40-65k, "high" rent is ~$800/month.
If you can't survive on minimum wage in the US, where you will still be eligible for food, health and housing assistance until your family makes 150% of that, you've screwed up.
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Maybe the poor can read books and learn instead of wasting countless hours reading fake news, social media, and turning their minds to mush. The poor will not be spied as easily by our intelligence community and therefore they will have better privacy rights than the rest of us. They can save the money they would have spent on Internet access and become less poor. They can be healthier and go outside and walk around instead of sitting slumped over in the dark in front of a glowing screen.
So, progress. And your friends and their businesses can't make competitive offers? Their problem, like I said: Capitalism!
Maybe we'll end up in a situation where only mom and pop shops which get free labor from their kids and family that can help can be viable. That wouldn't be so bad, less of an accumulation of wealth by the few exploiting the many.
Only I can judge you.
Sounds like what people in communism or war time might do. People usually call that ingeniosity, inventiveness or clever free-spirited trade then.
When Europeans hear about US food stamps, they say "what, like during the war?"
I never do anything useful and I have the right to have sex with your family members.
True, and lead isn't the only problem. I have family in a small midwestern town that occasionally still has "boil orders". Coming from the 'burbs it was somewhat shocking to realize, no, the US does NOT in fact have consistent universal potable water supplies to all of its citizens after all...
Are you tired of all the winning, yet?
The problem is that chains like McD or Wal-Mart have no problem fronting up huge amounts of labor cost, their profit margins are high enough to absorb those costs. Mom and pop stores are the hardest hits because their margins are already small, any fluctuation in energy, supply or labor cost hits them harder and faster. So they still have business, just have to have less employees where possible to do it with.
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McD is run and owned by franchisee's so they are mom and pop with corporate support, marketing, ordering, training (how to abuse workers and such).
Wal-Mart is a whole 'nother beast which externalizes things like health care costs onto local governments (per their infamous employee training videos on applying for food stamps).
About the rest of what you said: Capitalism! Once the minimum wage is set, all the players now compete for employees on things like fairness, flexibility, humaneness, kindness, etc. Not treating employees like disposable towelettes can go a long way when competing against soul-sucking companies like wal-mart and McDs. Can't do it? Get out of the business. Capitalism! It's funny how some avowed capitalists only like capitalism when it translates into easy abuse of employees and destruction of the environment and local economy.
Only I can judge you.
The entire McD burger cost less than a dollar to produce and are sold for $8-15. A quarter pound of real beef from a local butcher costs about $1.50, $2-4 for organic and is usually still sold for $8-15. If Wal-Mart and McD is allowed to externalize it's costs, why aren't local business owners? What's more, McD and Wal-Mart, even their franchises, operate from PO boxes in lower tax states. The complaint is not about competing with chains, they have the scale and low quality going for them, local businesses need and will do better to work against their competition.
It's the fact that business owners are competing against the government (unemployment and benefits) to attract workers, few people are willing to work if they get better benefits which is given to them through higher taxes to the business owners. And whenever business owners set the wages high enough, the government moves the level up further. Again, I have no problem with giving people unemployment for a period of time but to me, earning $35k/y in benefits is doing "pretty well".
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As if it's a choice, or an option.
Who died to give these guys the right?
Having a job is no guarantee for not being poor, because who controls the pay for the jobs that the poor do?
This is just more of the worst of what humans can be, using their punishments as justification for keeping the poor ignorant and disadvantaged.
More evil human tricks.