No Couch Potato Left Behind Act

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Feeling, evidently, flush with (other people's) cash, the Senate has concocted a novel way to spend $3 billion: Create a new entitlement. The Senate has passed -- and so has the House, with differences -- an entitlement to digital television.

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The $990 million House version of this entitlement -- call it "No Couch Potato Left Behind" -- is (relatively) parsimonious: Consumers would get vouchers worth only $40, and would be restricted to a measly two vouchers per household. The Senate's more spacious entitlement would pay for most of the cost -- $50 to $60 -- of the converter boxes. But there is Republican rigor in this: Consumers would be required to pay $10. That is the conservatism in compassionate conservatism.

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Gattuso says defenders of this entitlement argue that taxpayers will not be burdened by its costs because the government's sale of the analog frequencies will yield perhaps $10 billion. Think about that: Because the government may get $10 billion from one transaction, taxpayers are unburdened by government giving away $3 billion with another transaction.

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http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/mostread/s_401695.html

I have it (it's only $ 7 more a month than regular cable), but it doesn't give you as many choices as it appears to. Look at all the channels owned by the conglomerates Discovery, TimeWarnerAOL, Fox, Viacom, ABCDisney and NBCUniversalGE. After you throw in all the local access channels and shopping channels, there is not a whole lot left.

the analog frequencies TO. I thought the public owns the airwaves and frequencies. Does the government have a 'right' to sell them in our behalf? SHOULD the analog frequencies be sold?

(hope those aren't stupid questions)

MYH

At least this is what I heard (or understood) from NPR a week or two ago. The analog frequencies are used by PDs,FDs, ambulances and other emergency responders. Apparently analog frequency clutter plays a contributing role in disaster response confusion (oh, and the apparent inability of responders to work cooperatively).

Anybody else hear this? Did I misunderstand it?

and it's in the article.



It's the government that has mandated the end of analog transmissions and the switch to solely digital. Fair to say that not all households can afford the "less than $460" new TV from :puke: Wal-Mart. TV isn't a luxury anymore...but the switch to digital could make it one. So, it's fair for the government to cough up some of our dollars (yes, ours, none of 'em are ever truly theirs) to solve the problem they're creating for those 63 percent of households below the poverty line that have cable or satellite televion. This isn't a luxury in many households, where conventional television broadcast signals don't reach. Some may not recall that Cable TV came about in the first place to solve the broadcast access problems.