I’d rather see them finish the job and spend the money running fiber optic line from houses to the backbone.
Of course, the Republicans would never do that. (Cf. 2017 tax cut.)
On the bright side, perhaps work-from-home plus good broadband could result in enough knowledge workers moving out to exurbs to break some partisan gerrymanders.
If I’m really dreaming, perhaps a Second Homestead Act might attract remote-working Brooklynites to fill up the Great Plains states and turn Wyoming and the Dakotas blue.
I’m just not sure how this would work, without being some kind of huge money sink for the government, and I’m also not sure what economic benefits the country will derive from having a bunch of people in very remote rural areas having subsidized high speed internet.
If there’s no national economic benefit to be derived from it, then I’m not seeing why the government should fund it. I’m not concerned about rural people’s “rights” to internet- they can foot the bill if they want it, or their states can, as far as I’m concerned. The Federal government doesn’t owe anyone internet access, certainly not to the point of paying for them to have it.
Not sure why that’s a reply to me. I’m advocating for people in the cities to be hooked up to the 1000’ from their house to the main fibers.
I tend to agree w/ bump, but when I’ve raised the issue, I’ve consistently been met with the comparison to electrification. As well as suggestions that it is a necessity for agriculture.
I’m not entirely convinced, but I have pretty much acceded to that position. But I often think similarly when folk live in the boonies but complain about lack of water, poor ambulance service, etc. Well, to channel Sam Kinison… 
Of course then folk will say, “It is’t easy to just up and move…”
Adding taxes to purchases will keep prices down? This must be that “New Math” I’ve heard so much about…
This is why I don’t see this as the big win Democrats have touted. How much of this money will go to working class jobs & communities. In other words, will the benefits of this bill be visible before the 2022 election, or will we be seeing nothing but the expansion of corporate administrative jobs (the planning stage). Democrats have to give working class people a clear improvement in their lives if they’re going to argue against the Republican mantra of ‘this is going to cost you money’.
It’s not the lying, it’s the inconsistency. Saint Cad seems to be saying they should be lying from the start.
No, just basic economics. Taxing consumption suppresses it, this eases the supply issues that are part of the inflation story. That’s also partly why we raise interest rates to fight inflation.
The other cause of inflation is an expanded money supply due to printing all that money in the last few years. One way to take that money out of supply is with a tax, with revenue going to pay down the Fed’s balance sheet.
This isn’t ‘new math’ - it’s bog-standard economic theory
But you are easing demand by raising the prices. This doesn’t really keep prices from going up, now does it?
Yes, it does. Again, interest dates are the primary tool for fighting inflation, and they do it by suppressing demand by raising prices, which slows the economy and kills inflation.
If you want to see what some actual economists have to say, look at this article from the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, Historical Parallels to Today’s Inflationary Episode. Yes, I know, White House. Can’t believe them. But try, anyway.
Conclusion
No single historical episode is a perfect template for current events. But when looking for historical parallels, it is useful to concentrate on inflationary episodes that contained supply chain disruptions and a spike in consumer demand after a period of temporary suppression. The inflationary period after World War II is likely a better comparison for the current economic situation than the 1970s and suggests that inflation could quickly decline once supply chains are fully online and pent-up demand levels off. The CEA will continue to carefully gauge the trajectory of inflation.
Raising interest rates reduces people’s willingness to go into debt. The only raise prices on things that people buy on credit.
A sales tax raises the price on everything. If the point of mitigating inflation is to protect consumers from rising prices, then a sales tax is doing exactly the wrong thing.
Here is the actual text of the thing:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684/text
An argument that the initiatives will have no reducing effect is certainly reasonable - if you can demonstrate that they’re true. I.e.: Cite needed.
But, otherwise, you’re simply arguing that this needed to be done sooner. If, for example, I needed to refrain from releasing radioactive waste into the groundwater, when I discovered that I was doing it, it doesn’t matter that it’s now two years later and long past time for me to stop. That I’ve been slow doesn’t mean that I’m now free and clear to just keep dumping and poisoning the town.
In the short term, I would expect it to create jobs. That should decrease indebtedness and labor shortages. Obviously, that has a lifespan but it’s not guaranteed that the employers would all dump their employees after the gravy train stops. Once you’ve built all the new infrastructure, you’ve now got more infrastructure to maintain, and you’ve given a lot of people skills that they can bring to use on other projects for cheaper than they used to be, when there were fewer people with the necessary skills.
At some point in time, the world will run out of materials. As it is, the only claimed shortages are water, oil, and sand (for concrete) but none of those are true. If you want more water, you can desalinate rather than pump fresh; if you want more oil, you can frack or generate it from coal; if you want more sand, you can crush rocks. Fundamentally, material shortages are answered by demand and price increases.
Now, plausibly, those price increases will mean that the budgets for all of these projects are optimistic. But, again, those raised prices create new jobs and build out further infrastructure for things like being able to produce a greater amount of water and sand, at need. Quite likely, the capital investment will prove profitable in the long run.
Inflation would only increase depending on how all of this is funded. If they’re taxing to fund it then no, they’ll actually be introducting a deflationary source. If they’re borrowing/printing to fund it then yes, it would be inflationary.
As I understand it, a bit under half of the new spending (new spending = $550b) will be funded from money created initially for Covid relief. I assume that, that’s money which was simply “magicked” into being. But the other half comes from taxation. On the balance, I’d expect it to be a break-even from an inflationary standpoint since it’s half one and half the other.
I would need to hear the rationale from someone who supported the effort, but my initial instinct would be that you’re probably correct (unless they limit the new lines to the coasts, for the most part).
I have no opinion. Any references you can point to?
As a tech person, I’m someone skeptical of the viability of this - given that Google has already considered and abandoned similar efforts a few times.
I also suspect that, since this is all new infrastructure, the companies that successfully get the capital to go ahead and start up their system are going to be in a scramble to driving traffic through in maximum time with limited resources. Hooking up individual users isn’t going to be top of their list. They’re going to want to sign multi-year deals with large businesses to move internet traffic from large hubs, not sign up Ishmael Dinkus and his twenty children out in Nowhereseville Nebraska to be able to check his email.
The impact of LEO internet might not come to rural America for quite some time. And, in the meanwhile, the country is losing a non-negligible number of potential online workerforce, due to poor connection.
Strategically, wiring is a lot more secure as well. On the day that Canada invades, we’d rather have something buried.
They explicitly say, “Enacting this legislation would create macroeconomic effects that in turn would cause budgetary feedback. CBO has not estimated those effects or their budgetary consequences for this legislation.”
I.e., they’ve only calculated costs and not potential bonuses. That deficit may well be matched by the investments that are made as a part of the plan.
An earlier review of “bills of this sort”, by the CBO, indicated that they expected budget savings for a net-neutral inflationary/deflationary budget. That is the type of plan that has been approved, as earlier shown.
Firstly, let’s point out that this is an assertion, not a statement of fact. Or, at least, you’re free to try and prove it somehow.
But let’s accept it as true. If it is then you’re simply making the argument that the system of government needs to be improved - which is a different problem that has no particular relation to this bill.
Imagine, for example, that I’m trying to escape Soviet Russia, being chased by Russian soldiers who want to kill me. To successfully save my life, I need to cross this river. The guy who owns the boat, however, is a scumbag and wants to charge me $10,000 to cross, even though he usually only charges a few rubles, because he’s realized that he’s got me and that I have the money.
Well, I still pay because the alternative is that I just die. Dealing with him is a problem for a different date and place.
Likewise, we need dams to not collapse and wash away our towns and cities. Whether we’re getting fleeced a bit on this, or not, it’s still something that needs to be done and which - as the CBO has indicated - is net-neutral or net-positive from a financial standpoint.
More importantly, passing the bill is completely irrelevant when it comes to fixing government. If you fix it quickly then, hey, maybe all those budgeted things will shrink in price. If not then you were a big dumb dumb for continuing to elect crooks and incompetents.
If you want well-budgeted, organized, and competent, you get that through voting not through legislation. Hiring an incompetent to build your house and then deciding to live on the dirt and eat grubs, because you can’t trust him to build a house, is not the right strategy.
…Out of time to comment further.
One of the big things limiting modern economic improvements in rural areas is the lack of reliable broadband service. The last two years have proven that there are a lot of jobs that can be done remotely, so that they could be done anywhere in the country, except those areas that don’t have reliable internet.
If Podunk, AnyState has god internet, businesses there can seek out work from almost anywhere, and recruit people from almost anywhere to work for them. This deepens and diversifies the types of businesses that can be run there, both of which are important if you want to revive the economies of small town America.
Just for the record… I work from home now. Because of COVID.
I’m on my third(it’s kind of confusing because of bundles) satellite system in all the years I’ve lived here. Zero other options other than satellites. I’m not saying zero broadband options, there where no other options period. I bought my first sat dish from Sears. That’s how long I’ve been doing this.
Works great. While I don’t get a gig or two down like some do over fiber, I get 250-300 Mbs down.
I also put a small cell phone antenna on our roof and a repeater inside. We ditched the landline. The Land line was totally unreliable.
Sure, but why is that the Federal government’s problem? These people live in states that could provide tax breaks, or fund this sort of thing themselves if they were interested.
And other than remote work, what’s the rationale that lack of speedy broadband is some sort of economic limiter? Every tiny town I can think of seems to have multiple internet providers with speeds in the 20-100 mbps range. I know that’s not blazingly fast, but it’s not 56k modem speeds either. It should be adequate for just about anything that would make an economic difference, I would think.
Again, Starlink is already available in many places, and will soon be available in many more. One Web is launching satellites soon, as are a couole of other startups.
Right now here in Canada, rural users can buy Starlink now. So can people in the norhern states. There are already 1700 Starlink satellites in orbit. This is 300 mbps internet with sub 50ms latency. For $99/mo. Way better than previous satellite, and almost certainly as good or better than any rural internet that will be built out. It will also be available before any of the government’s rural internet will.
And think of all the copper that will have to be smelted, trenches dug with gas-guzzling machines, and other waste that laying down all that infrastructure will cost, just to provide something that’s already available and better and probably cheaper.
This, like trains, are 20th century technologies out of place in the 21st century. This is a plan put together by old, out of touch people and the old special interests propping them up. Both Republicans and Democrats.
The Federal government has at least some interest in trying to maintain at least approximately equal economic development nation-wide. Having wealthy states and shithole states makes it harder to make the case that all Americans matter.
And since quite a few of the shithole states are governed by the party that simply refuses to spend any money they don’t absolutely have to, no one else is going to try to improve those shithole states.
I can’t say for sure myself, but I know that the lack of such service is usually cited as a reason why the big companies don’t want to build new businesses in such areas. They seem to have reasons that they think are sufficient.
Of course, if you fundamentally don’t care about helping economically depressed areas improve, then none of that will convince you. I on the other hand have heard a whole lot of people blaming the rise of Trumpism on the very lack of economic opportunities for these states, and I think it’s worth spending a few bucks to see if we can stem the tide on that crap.
Plus, that’s what a whole lot of voters voted for a year ago. So, hey, democracy in action, you’ve lost this argument for this year. Please play again next year if you really care that much about it.