Also, the "how" is really important. Democrats always want to pay for these programs with highly distortionary targeted taxes and cross subsidies instead of general tax revenue. When you target an industry for extra taxes, you disincentivize it. That's why we tax cigarettes and propose to tax sugary drinks. Imagine putting a 16-18% additional tax (the current USF rate) on all cell phones to help pay for cell phones for poor people. That would make cell phones more expensive, reduce cell phone sales and industry revenue and make the industry less of a desirable place to invest.
And the distortionary effect hurts consumers too. For example, Baltimore requires any would-be fiber provider to subsidize access to poor neighborhoods (by mandating providers build into neighborhoods where only a few subscribers will share in the cost of the node). That tanks the economic case for fiber in Baltimore, and as a result nobody gets fiber. And Baltimore is broke, so municipal fiber isn't an option either.
I am not familiar enough with the history of paying for infrastructure by taxes to comment, except to say that sin taxes seem to be more likely to pass then a general tax increase. That said, I think relatively small fees and taxes assessed on items where demand is inelastic probably work fine to promote investment and growth, especially if they were provided directly to municipalities for high speed rollouts and state and federal restrictions were reduced on municipal broadband organisations.
Not sure about Baltimore either, though I wonder if it follows the pattern I've seen in a few other American cities where there is a large urban center surrounded by smaller wealthier townships/suburbs who's residents take advantage of the city as a resource by aren't part of the tax base. Maybe the Balitmore Broadband Coalition will comment though.
This wouldn't get anywhere in the US in the current climate, but I think it's time for public broadband ISPs to start being created/funded at a national level.
My personal dream is to see something like this being undertaken through the auspices of the USPS. The handwringing over the USPS's relevance in the age of the internet, when there's such lack of competition in ISPs, seems short-sighted to me. I think the original founders would have supported broadband being offered publicly through federal programs, especially given that the internet was a publicly developed product; the Postal Clause in the US Constitution arguably was intended to address this issue, as there's no way constitutional authors could have anticipated the internet. So, when the constitution enables congress "to establish post offices and post roads," I think public ISPs are what they had in mind. It seems natural for me that the USPS would become a point of development for public ISPs.
I love seeing small private ISPs--there's some in our area--but, at least when I've seen them, they often seem to be holdovers from anomalous circumstances during the initial boom of the internet. They started when it was possible to compete, and have maintained a foothold by doing things well, but haven't been able to expand.
I do. Internet, day by day is becoming a channel to deliver more and more targeted ads. I think the free internet provision is driven by this need, and not out of a honest urge to "empower" the poor. So in other words, if you give free internet to poor who is uninitiated, you are paving way for their oppression and exploitation....
Because we can debate HOW to do that effectively, if subsidies are effective or just increase costs overall, if we agree on the what. But if we don't agree that universal high speed broadband internet is a good thing, then talking about the How to do that is farcical at best.