"In the face of compelling pandemic-driven evidence that affordable broadband Internet access is essential to modern life, that tens of millions of Americans are being left behind, and that an emergency requiring immediate action exists, five enlightened Arkansas Republicans recently persuaded their overwhelmingly Republican legislature to vote unanimously to give local governments significant new authority to provide or support the provision of broadband Internet access."

We'd be better served by providing the names of the ones who introduced it instead of a blanket statement making it sound like all Republicans supported this, especially when at the local level where it really matters they did not support it, they did the exact opposite.

Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Bob Latta (R-Ohio) Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.)

The general idea that there should be competition is good, just not going about it by blocking attempts to create municipal broadband. I'd like to still have the choice to choose private companies if I feel the public option isn't meeting my needs.

The republican point of view is that if something is government-supported, it's unfair to compete against, as the government option will offer better quality service at lower cost than is economical for a private company, since the government has no profit motive.

(This somehow leads to the conclusion that government services are bad.)

Don't try to describe a viewpoint that you're only familiar with from stereotypes. It doesn't contribute to the discussion in any meaningful way, and only serves to further propagate the stereotype.

The problem Republicans (in general) have with government-run businesses is not that they operate at a lower cost and so thwart competition, but that they seem to operate at a lower cost because they run on tax dollars rather than on paying customers. Combine that with the fact that the government is not incentivized to make the business profitable and you have a lot of wasted resources used to provide a service that isn't any good but is so cheap to the end user (not to the taxpayer) that it's impossible to compete.

Whether this model of government-run systems is accurate is open to debate, but it's not helpful to set up straw men.

There are a lot of conservative narratives baked into this post. Let’s look at the horrible mismanagement of the USPS. I’m 2004 DHL and UPS wrote a law to increase the pension liabilities of the USPS. It passed in 2005 after being passed by a republican super majority. Prior to it’s passing the USPS use to be the poster child of government done right. Service was excellent and reliable, affordable, revenue neutral or surplus generating.

In light of this new budgetary crisis created entirely by private business one of their attempts to generate revenue was to sell merch. For a short time you could buy an Official USPS Outfit Dog Costume for example, and it was actually working. Republicans saw them doing that and passed regulation saying no you can’t sell merch or do anything outside delivering mail.

The post master general at the time said fine, if we can’t raise money other ways then we need to raise rates. Guess what republicans did. They told them to piss off. After kneecapping the usps they just pointed at them and used them as an example of bad government which they themselves caused. Classic “starving the beast”

The narrative republicans have around government inefficiency is either wrong or entirely self inflicted. The USPS is just my favorite example.

And if the republicans actually cared they’d propose alternatives and be active in the legislative process with an intent on servicing the “average” American. Trying to ban municipalities federally does nothing but obstruct and protect their corporate funders. That is unacceptable

In the UK when the GPO was part of the civil service both the postal and to a lesser extent the telecoms side was used as a source of revenue - need more tax add a penny to the cost of a stamp.

That story is a dramatized version of events designed to be a Facebook meme: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/15/afl-cio/wi...

That page does not refute anything GP said except to note that the prefunding obligations concern health benefits rather than pensions, but that's not core to the point they were making.

Try arguing with what people actually say instead of making a strawman of some Facebook meme.

I don’t get the facebook meme thing but I last I heard it being discussed was on a podcast called “opening arguments” around the time DeJoy was brought in. The show is a comedian and a Harvard lawyer discussing policy and law. Highly recommended to those who may not know about it. They research and go a lot deeper than what you’d read in a comment or news article on a variety of issues. Well worth a sub

I am curious, has anything got fixed after latest USA elections?

Naah, it's been over three months and Biden hasn't fixed even half of the government problems that have been deliberately introduced since Reagan took over in 1981. Which of course goes to prove that the Democrats suck.

> The narrative republicans have around government inefficiency is either wrong or entirely self inflicted.

if it's self inflicted, then it's not wrong. the fact that they can hamstring important services/bills for purely political reasons and still get away with it at the polls is a great example of how perverse incentives in government lead to mismanagement. if you want to persuade me that X government service will be run efficiently, you need to first convince me that a certain mainstream party will not be able to sabotage it.

A very similar argument can be made for private capital, except it is subject to almost zero democratic controls/influences.

If literally the only thing standing in the way of sunshine and roses in this picture is that the Republicans are in charge, why is it so necessary for the Democrats to put them in charge?

The Democrats could just let the post office be privatised then run their own, on the side, out of to the Democrat HQ. It'd give them an electoral edge delivering pamphlets too.

The reason they can't do this is because the post office, fundamentally and inescapably, doesn't generate enough revenue to justify running it the way they want to. The Democrat voters don't want to bear the cost of the service they want. And the Republicans have noticed this.

Whoa, calm down and show some respect. Parent post is right. That is one of the narratives you hear quite frequently. Your addition is also valid.

I'm not being defensive (I'm not a Republican), but I do want to ensure that our discussion accurately portrays both sides. Setting up straw men is not only offensive to those we disagree with, it dulls our own capacity to argue for our viewpoint effectively because we never face the real alternative.

I grew up (and still live and work) in a forever-red conservative state. My dad was a glutton for conservative political news, so I grew up immersed in Fox News, Hot Air, Instapundit, Glenn Beck, Drudge Report, you name it. I'm still surrounded by conservative commentary, both educated and ignorant, at every social function I attend.

In all my years of exposure to conservative thought, I have not once read or heard someone say that their concern with the government doing a task is that they'll do it too well. Where do you hear it?

No, really, that's not a Republican perspective at all.

In fact, the Republican perspective is the opposite; that government-provided options will be invariably be worse value for money - this is why Republicans favor privatization.

I think the Republican objection is to general revenues being used to operated a subsidized Internet service.

If that is what you mean by "government-supported", then there is a reasonable argument to be had about whether forcing everyone to pay for the municipal option through taxes really results in a fair competitive landscape for private providers.

Yes - government supported is just a fancy euphemism for taxpayer funded.

It’s easy to champion crap when everyone else is paying for it :p

> as the government option will offer better quality service at lower cost than is economical for a private company, since the government has no profit mo

FFS that’s not why republicans have problems with the government services. The issue isn’t that government doesn’t have to make a profit, it’s that it doesn’t have to be sustainable at all (i.e. it doesn’t even have to bring in enough money to support itself unlike a non-profit).

Additionally, nobody is afraid the government is going to be “better quality”. That’s not the case in most markets where the government operates.

The concern is that the government can operate a service financially unsustainably and and offer a shitty service for so cheap that it destroys the market for better services.

A government-funded high-speed deployment of 20mbps to the house that goes out for an hour during the night and occasionally disconnects for a few seconds throughout the day that only costs $2.99/mo will destroy the competition, run a deficit, and people will have worse service because of it.

Which is just as stupid as if the republicans are so concerned about sustainablily, why haven't they made a peep about or made attempts to ban the VC model that American startups operate under?

The money the VCs are swinging around on was put in their care voluntarily (you invest in the VC fund) or voluntarily by proxy (you invest in a fund that invests partially or wholly in vc stuff) whereas public coffers are kept full by threat of violence and therefore need to be treated with more respect.

When you take someone's money by threat of violence under the premise that doing so is a net positive for society you have a much greater obligation to pursue that result and sustainability is one of many considerations when it comes to whether or not something is a net positive for society.

And explain to me how private debt, and wealth, isn't also enforced by a threat of violence? Why I can't just walk into a store and take a car? Also a threat of violence. Why can't I just tell the bank to shove it when I've moved in? Threat of violence. When big business poisons a river, or puts forced arbitration clauses in their contracts, or mistreats their workers, more threats of violence should you try and seek redress.

You're a hypocrite, picking and choosing your argument to suit your position.

The same thing will happen to you if you don't pay your taxes or don't pay back your credit card debt.

And the extremely unlikely end result, jail, is exactly the same for both public and civil debt.

And that's the trouble with these stupid arguments. Not only are they childish extremes, anyone using them are all just massive hypocrites who want to pillage the commons for their own gain and have the rules always work in their favour, conveniently different when it comes to reining in monopolies, or using their excessive wealth to force others out of business, it all depends on which side they stand to gain most money out.

Then they just flip their argument on its head to justify their privileged position, which is maintained by a threat of violence.

Debt isn’t enforced by violence in the US. You can’t end up in jail for failing to pay credit card debt.

Setting aside that obvious gaff, you’re comparing individuals being prevented from stealing people’s property to the government being allowed to. It doesn’t really make any sense.

> VC model that American startups operate under?

Because it’s not tax payer money being squandered. How is that so hard to grasp?

Rich people run out of money making stupid bets. The federal government does not.

Because they look through their rose tinted glasses and think the US is leading the world in smartphones, electric cars, pharma, and internet companies. They don’t see the problems that you see.

It also doesn't even seem accurate. Private industries can compete with public ones on both quality and cost. The problem is that, in the face of municipal broadband, private companies have to compete to actually serve the public not "compete" to gouge consumers of as much money as possible in their comfy government protected monopolies.

They can, if the public providers let them. It's a choice in that regard, since the government can simply say "we'll offer at 10% of our cost, and subsidize it with taxes", in which case you can't compete unless you're insanely more efficient than the public provider.

Where it becomes unfair is when municipal broadband is supported by general tax revenues. If the citizens of a city are required to pay for the municipal broadband whether or not they use it, then its going to pretty hard to compete with that.

I pay for trash pickup, parks, libraries, roads, schools, fire, and police regardless of my usage (all out of property taxes). I can stick 8 kids in my local school system, or none, and I’m charged the same. Even my water and sewer are provided for by local government, with only my electric service being a for profit (yet highly regulated) utility, and yet internet connectivity is put forth as a beacon of capitalism where we expect competition when a natural monopoly exists by way of the last mile.

The “unfairness” is simple. You regulate the entity who runs your muni fiber operation, and if they don’t meet your metrics you’re measuring success by, you replace them (whether that’s internal folks or an org contracted to provide services).

TLDR Ramp muni fiber deployments with rigorous operational oversight as a requirement.

Certainly, you can make a case for cities providing broadband just as they provide trash, sewer, parks, libraries, etc.

What you can't do is pretend that private broadband companies would be competing with municipal broadband on equal footing.

This is a solved problem.

The municipality provides the fiber network. All ISPs rent dark fiber, local loops, wavelengths or bitstream access on equal open access terms.

All on equal footing and equal terms.

Is it a requirement that these common goods and services have private competition that is on equal footing? Private security, trash services, libraries (netflix) all have private competition that seems to be thriving in the spaces that have higher requirements, but the baseline situation appears to be handled for much of the region.

It's not a requirement. Or at least: we commonly accept many such services provided by municipalities.

What is a requirement is acknowledging the unequal footing.

Public and private will always be on unequal footing, due to the difference in the their objectives. It may also be worthwhile to point out that public infra is designed to serve even people who can’t otherwise afford it, as well as limited by their ability to attract talent. (I’m sure there are others.)

I had assumed we all felt comfortable using “public/private” as a shortcut for all of these differences, but am learning that is not necessarily shared. In terms of moving the discussion forward, what were you hoping to achieve by pointing out some of these facts?

The difference in footing is not based on objectives but the means by which funding is obtained. In the case of private companies, the funding can only by obtained by providing services that the market demands. The government obtains its funding by taxing people.

> Public and private will always be on unequal footing, due to the difference in the their objectives.

No they won’t. Public projects can be setup to require that they are revenue neutral or positive.

I'm hoping to accomplish pointing out the silliness of the post I originally responded to, which asserted that there was no reason to think it would be unfair competition.

> when a natural monopoly exists by way of the last mile.

Given how many people actually have multiple options in the last mile, it’s not a natural monopoly.

The FCC's listing of multiple broadband providers requires you to read between the lines. For my address they list 5 providers. AT&T is on there twice, there's a cable company, and then Viasat and Hughesnet. Given that Viasat and Hughesnet exist for pretty much the entire contiguous US it makes it super easy to say there's at least two providers serving your area, so the whole 99% of people are served by at least two providers is kind of a worthless statement. Given the high latency involved in their flavor of satellite operations, low data caps (or throttling, technically Viasat says its not a cap) they're not really competitive in just about any market with modern wireline services.

So in reality I have a choice of two wired providers. Imagine how great our food would be if the only restaurants available were either Burger King or McDonalds. What a competitive marketplace!

Two wired providers is not a natural monopoly.

> A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

It might not be limited to just one for all markets, but two choices isn't very competitive due to the massive infrastructural costs and other barriers of entry (e.g., rights of way). Also, my current residence is an example where there actually is competition. As pointed out above, just because the FCC says there's 2+ broadband providers they're including two satellite providers. So a lot of those 3 provider places are really single wireline providers.

Once again, is a market where all restaurants are either McDonalds or Burger King an example good competition?

Only if you have Local Loop Unbundling. For most of the US the completion for the last mine is minuscule or non existent.

Same with water and sewer?

I have a neighbor that refuses to use running water. Should the infrastructure be routed around their property?

Should they be forced to use running water?

So are they on rainwater or what's the deal exactly?

They refuse to pay to ‘fix’ their pipes in their home. Claim they are all leaking.

They have the money to do it, but prefer refilling the 5 gallon jugs.

Not the point I was making.

If a city provides any service: water, sewer, broadband, from property taxes, its going to be really really hard for any company to compete with that.

So you can make the case for municipal broadband, but don't pretend that private ISPs are going to compete with it.

Not quite. The position is that government has an unfair advantage in competition (might be regulatory or being funded by taxation, or maybe free scale by being a government supplier) so they can push out suppliers who would otherwise supply a better / cheaper service.

The UK does not have any low cost healthcare providers because you can’t compete with a tax payer funded organisation.

Now, do government services tend to be better? That’s another question.

No republican in history has ever uttered those words.

Republicans argue that government run programs are filled with waste, excess, and decreased output b/c they don't have a profit motive. That was the case with Soviet manufacturing operations, Chinese farming, and the US Veterans Affairs Hospitals. The Soviets could never get the right products when they were needed b/c manufacturing decisions where made from a centralized location, not by the people that needed certain goods. China used to control farming, until one day they had the bright idea to let the farmers control farm output. Chinese farming production has increased by multiples of it's government mandate levels. The VA Hospital system is the worst healthcare system in US, in terms of quality of car and lead time for an appointment. And the US Government doesn't cover military connected injuries at non-VA Hospitals.

It's hard to see how this is a negative with something like broadband. as long as they can offer better quality service at lower cost, it's a win for every citizen

>I'd like to still have the choice to choose private companies if I feel the public option isn't meeting my needs.

It doesn't make sense to run multiple companies' fiber to each home.

It also doesn’t make sense to have multiple cellular providers building towers in the same place and duplicating spectrum needs, but here we are.

But yes, in most areas there isn’t enough demand for internet to deploy fiber multiple times.

Most carriers already share lines don't they?

I’ve never seen it in the US. It’s always been two options, buy from the company that owns the phone line (DSL)/fiber to your house, or buy from the company that owns the coaxial line to your house (cable).

That wasn’t always true at least for POTS, I think it was called “dry DSL”? The phone company owned the line but your internet was through another company.

they used to, that was part of the debate about title-2 or not and net neutrality. That's why when DSL was the fastest internet there were so many choices and options but now it feels like there are hardly any (depending on where you live).

In my state the Republican legislature passed legislation to enable both municipal broadband and require power companies to allow data services on utility poles, which power companies invariability blocked.

Wow really! That is great. Those are some enlightened Republicans. Which state is this?

If it’s Arkansas, then they might be “enlightened” on municipal broadband but are certainly missing the mark with the recent anti-trans law.

Yeah, indeed.

Probably Arkansas SB 74, which was passed unanimously by the Arkansas state legislature, which has a Republican majority.

This is an extremely biased assessment. The GOP tried to ban municipal broadband providers IF they established a state owned/run monopoly and prevented private companies from competing in the market.

That is not "blatantly corrupt". In fact, closing a market to the public companies and forcing everyone to use a city-run broadband is a lot more concerning.

How anyone thinks corporate lobbying is good for anyone other than corrupt politicians and corporate giants is a mystery I will never understand.

Actual lobbying is such a small part of the money that goes to politicians that it's a red herring.

The source of corruption is through PACs that support candidates without the candidates consent or guidance (either ostensibly or actually).

You can either give a candidate a few thousand dollars directly or you can spend an unlimited amount of money telling people how great you think the candidate is. Only the former is lobbying.

I'm not really interested in discussing semantics, but rather the root issue.

Money in Politics, especially when it's perfectly legal, is a massive, massive problem. It's literally impossible to get fair and impartial leaders who will make decisions in the interest of the common person when corporations are spending millions and millions.

Right now a judge sitting on the highest court in the entire country is hearing a case involving a company who openly and directly paid to have her elected into that position. I don't care if that person is from the right or left (or middle), there is no universe where that is a good thing, or should be allowed.

Having a Supreme Court Justice you paid preside over your court case sounds like a very perverted form of Justice under Democracy to me.

Well actually repositions glasses, lobbying is a big part of it: you are a politician for a part of your career. If and when you quit, you can just go work for the lobby that had lobbied you while you were in office. It's an amazingly well planned out safety net that all but the most disgraced politicians (see Anthony Weiner) can rely on. It means that even if you and I and our closes 1000 friends got together and each kicked in $1000 to donate to a politician to, say, vote for municipal broadband, it might not mean nearly as much as $25k from a lobby group that later will hire the politician with a very cushy salary.

I'm inclined to treat "you got a million dollar ad buy on your behalf from Municipal Broadband Sucks PAC" as a form of lobbying, personally.

To our misfortune the Supreme Court does not agree, and where they are the opinion that counts. (As you know no doubt already.)

Lobbying and campaigning are tightly coupled. Splitting hairs is moot.

Plus threats to pull or create jobs, fights for tax incentives or other 'free' stuff like special infrastructure or zoning changes. Messaging attacks & earned media are near free, healthcare industry is culpable here. Military seems to be the worst in all of this.

Politicians care about getting re-elected. That's the power fulcrum or pressure point.

A lot of people immediately think this type of thing is corruption, but consider that these people might actually believe in this stuff and that it's easier for companies to find and support like minded politicians than it is to convince someone who holds an opposite view.

Politicians around the world regularly flip flop on issues in lockstep with their party. That’s not the behavior of someone that actually holds personal views on the subject, suggesting that something else is influencing decision making.

Which shouldn’t be surprising as politics covers such a wide range of issues it would be strange for most of them to have strong views on every issue. Frankly it’s people who don’t care one way or the other are who you try and influence.

You're making a distinction where one doesn't exist.

Lobbying includes all attempts to influence legislators.

PACs are just a legal fiction to circumvent a law, the effect is the same: support those who's policies you prefer.

I see no difference between "We'll give you $X to vote for this bill" and "We'll spend $X on advertising for your campaign if you vote for this bill".

> "We'll spend $X on advertising for your campaign if you vote for this bill"

That's illegal.

The advertising is given no strings attached. The only incentive that you (the politician) have to vote for things that favor the company is that, if you don't, they may not advertise for you next time.

The "fun" part of this whole thing is that the money those companies spend isn't really the issue, it's the fact that the money is helpful to influence people. Comparatively, if a person of non-political celebrity tweets that they like a candidate, they might muster much more influence than say, Exxon could for the same candidate. Now that candidate is just as beholden to the interests of that celebrity as one might be to a corporation.

In effect, the PAC money really is just taking money away from influential individuals and commoditizing it.

I, personally, don't really see a difference. It's not like pre-Citizens United America was some sort of paradise. Most people perceive it as worse but I just see it as different. I, personally, still have a similar amount of political power and influence.

> The only incentive that you (the politician) have to vote for things that favor the company is that, if you don't, they may not advertise for you next time.

And also that if you do, you may be able to go and work for them for good compensation when your political career is over.

Or your spouse/sibling/kid/niece/nephew get a nice internship or other position.

> The advertising is given no strings attached. The only incentive that you (the politician) have to vote for things that favor the company is that, if you don't, they may not advertise for you next time.

When an oil company buys advertising to a candidate, both parties know it's going to be in exchange for votes that favor the oil company. To claim anything else is bad faith. I THINK we're in agreement here?

If so, I don't think it's correct to call it "no strings attached". The politician might not be contractually bound to votes in favor of oil, but if they want to still have a job at the end of their term, they're somewhat forced to.

While lobbyists write actual laws and work for the same companies + industry groups that fund the PACs, I find it difficult to agree with you.

Being for a free market is great, if it's better than the government run internet won't it win out in the end anyway? I've yet to see anyone prove it's a better idea to not allow the extra competition. Seems like other countries have a mix and it's fine, what is so unique about the USA that we can't try what has worked in other countries? I'll never understand the Republican reptile brain feature that is so opposed to change.

Free market / small government party, lol

Opposing something that's government-controlled does not contradict that. I'm not arguing against it, by any means, though. If municipal services are governed by the Bill of Rights primarily, I'd be all for it, at this point. However, in world in which the FCC is in constant violation of the Bill of Rights, I'm not holding out any hope.

> Remember that Republicans tried to ban municipal broadband federally only two months ago! Just an absurdly, transparently corrupt move.

The article you posted said something else, that the bill was to ban government-run broadband in an area that has private competition.

From your link:

  The bill "would promote competition by limiting government-run broadband networks throughout the country"
  and
  States or municipalities that already offer Internet service may continue to do so if "there is no more
  than one other commercial provider of broadband Internet access that provides competition for that service in a particular area."

> The article you posted said something else, that the bill was to ban government-run broadband in an area that has private competition.

Not quite. It bans new government-run broadband everywhere regardless of whether or not there would be private competition in the area. In areas that already have government-run broadband, it allows that to continue as long as that area does not have more than one private provider.

BTW, my source for the above is the text of the bill itself, which the Ars Technica article links to.

It says in 2(a):

> Except as provided in subsections 3(b)(1) and (c), a State or political subdivision thereof may not provide or offer for sale to the public, a telecommunications provider, or to a commercial provider of broadband internet access service, retail or wholesale broadband internet access service.

Subsection 3(b) starts thusly:

> Any State or political 9subdivision thereof providing or offering for sale, either to the public, a telecommunications provider, or to a provider of broadband internet access service, retail or wholesale broadband internet access service, before the date of the enactment of this section

and continues in 3(b)(1) (the first exception mentioned earlier):

> notwithstanding subsection (a), may continue to provide or offer for sale such service if the Commission finds there is no more than one other commercial provider of broadband internet access that provides competition for that service in a particular area

and on 3(c) contains the second exception:

> Notwithstanding subsection (a), this section does not apply to the Tennessee Valley Authority