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Tennessee Could Give Taxpayers America's Fastest Internet For Free, But It Gave Comcast and AT&T $45 Million Instead (vice.com)
Chattanooga, Tennessee is home to some of the fastest internet speeds in the United States, offering city dwellers Gbps and 10 Gpbs connections. Instead of voting to expand those connections to the rural areas surrounding the city, which have dial up, satellite, or no internet whatsoever, Tennessee's legislature voted to give Comcast and AT&T a $45 million taxpayer handout. Motherboard reports: The situation is slightly convoluted and thoroughly infuriating. EPB -- a power and communications company owned by the Chattanooga government -- offers 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps, and 10 Gpbs internet connections. A Tennessee law that was lobbied for by the telecom industry makes it illegal for EPB to expand out into surrounding areas, which are unserved or underserved by current broadband providers. For the last several years, EPB has been fighting to repeal that state law, and even petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to try to get the law overturned. This year, the Tennessee state legislature was finally considering a bill that would have let EPB expand its coverage (without providing it any special tax breaks or grants; EPB is profitable and doesn't rely on taxpayer money). Rather than pass that bill, Tennessee has just passed the "Broadband Accessibility Act of 2017," which gives private telecom companies -- in this case, probably AT&T and Comcast -- $45 million of taxpayer money over the next three years to build internet infrastructure to rural areas.
Making legislated monopolies great again!
Government working for it's constituents at the finest.
Let's not pretend like this is a party-specific issue. While they pay more lip service to helping the little guy, Democrats are every bit as much in the pockets of big business as Republicans are.
This is what happens when you let one party have a complete stranglehold on state government. The number of Republicans in the state senate are almost 6 to 1 in favor of Republicans. It's almost 3-1 in favor of Republicans in the state house. The governor in Republican and there's no accountability. Voters have shown consistently that the vast majority of them only care about whether a D or R is next to a candidate's name and everything else is negotiable. I'm sure we'll get a few "Throw the bums out" posts, but that's not going to happen. Most of the state governments in the southeastern USA have sizable Republican majorities. I've seen corrupt practices out of the Democrats too when they had strangleholds on states with huge majorities in the state legislature. It's what happens when one party gets entrenched and there's no hope of getting them out.
I know the intent of the article is to make people enraged, and it certainly seems like something's going wrong here.
However, I have serious, fundamental reservations about government competing with the free market.
While certainly there are some circumstances, and this may well be one, where government can beneficially 'manage the commons' better than private or for-profit interests, there's something troubling about government agencies, on taxpayer funds, driving private firms out of business.
Yes, I see from the article that EPB runs a profit, and doesn't take tax money for operation. But do they bear the long-term capital costs that a private firm would for infrastructure? They certainly get use of city right-of-ways, no? In disputes over land use or zoning, I have to imagine they get a far more sympathetic hearing from city agencies?
In any case, it should be in the interest of any citizen to doubt the wisdom of establishing and protecting anti-competitive markets in the long run, not to mention the idea of a business having (essentially) the power of law enforcement on their side.
http://reason.com/archives/201...
-Styopa
Golf clap for a master job the GOP did getting people to vote against their own best interests. Bravo, my friends.
Credit would be due if it were somehow 'hard' to fool people. As Mark Twain (allegedly) said, "It's easier to fool a man than to convince him he's been fooled."
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
I'm no fan of the GOP, but face it: It would not have been any different if the Democrats ruled. What would change is who gets to steal from you.
And frankly, if you're a rabbit, do you care whether fox or wolf eats you? It sure matters to fox and wolf, but to you, the outcome isn't that different.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Your statement presumes the Democratic party would yield a different result. That isn't the case. The Democratic party shifted to neoliberalism in the late 80s/early 90s.
The parties differ on social issues. They are identical when it comes to corporate issues.
The Democrats won the popular vote. In a two horse race they seem pretty competitive.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Let it go already. There is no popular vote in the US for president, and never has been. The republicans won by the rules that were in place. If the rules had been different, the campaigns would have also been different, but they weren't.
No. Which was GP's point, as opposed to GGP pretending that it's okay when one side does it. This is the problem; when you only focus on what the other team does, it's easier for 'your' team to get away with worse and worse things.