The majority of Americans do not favor making affordable high-speed Internet access a government priority, according to a study released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project on Wednesday.
In a national phone survey of 2,252 adults, Pew researchers asked if expanding affordable broadband access to everyone in the country should be a top priority for the federal government.
Whether it is due to anti-government sentiment, a shifting of priorities in a tough economic environment or the uncertain benefits of the Internet, 53 percent of those surveyed said that expansion should not be attempted by the government or it was not an important priority.
“A debate has arisen about the role of government in stepping in to ensure availability to high-speed Internet access for all Americans,” said Aaron Smith, author of the Pew Internet Project’s report.
“The majority think not, and the surprise is that non-users are the least inclined to think government has a role in the spread of broadband.”
Expanding affordable high-speed Internet access to all Americans is the main mission of the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan.
This SHOULD NOT be a priority at all for the government. Let them focus on unemployment and get that fixed first. Second should be the economy in general.
Let keep our priorities straight!
How, exactly, does the government “fix” unemployment and “the economy in general”? In spite of all the anti-government rhetoric, most blowhards seem to ignore (or simply don’t realize) that these two aspects are largely in the hands of private businesses. When jobs are cut so gamblers (“investors”) can get a return on their bet or so some do-nothing executive can retire with a golden parachute, that costs jobs. When the government does take steps to create jobs, whether it’s through employment with the government itself or promoting contracts with private businesses that hire more workers, the same blowhards whine about “government spending” and whatever buzzword they’ve been fed.
Bottom line is that the corporations have successfully fooled the average American into scapegoating the government for everything while the charlatans in the corporations are the ones largely responsible for the problems that we are seeing. These are the same ones who, instead of using tax cuts to create more jobs, pocket the money while offshoring more work that only serves to increase the take of the gamblers and the executives. So, clearly, the government cannot affect unemployment through tax policy. That ship has sailed.
On the other hand, the government can very easily regulate high-speed Internet, as examples are already set forth for how to do this with how the government has regulated radio and television bandwidth for decades.
I’d say that priorities should remain within realistic terms where the government already has inroads, rather than asking the government to spend money on proverbial crystal balls and super hero capes to try to “solve” problems that are clearly outside their reach.
Yeah, I love to read these “disclosures” by focus groups that are never described. In this day and age they exist by getting their sharp point out there to be recgognized bu those who will then give money.
This is a typical BS question: “should be a top priority for the federal government.” The real questions are how much it might cost? What are your top 10 top priorities? What are you willing to spend on them? And then rank them. This issue would fall by the wayside.
FYI:
“Joseph Pew and his heirs were politically conservative. The J. Howard Pew Freedom Trust had as its mission to “acquaint the American people with ‘the evils of bureaucracy’ and ‘the values of a free market’ and ‘to inform our people of the struggle, persecution, hardship, sacrifice and death by which freedom of the individual was won.’” Joseph N. Pew, Jr. called Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, “a gigantic scheme to raze U.S businesses to a dead level and debase the citizenry into a mass of ballot-casting serfs.”
All in favor of letting go of ANY AND ALL benifits that they might have received ince the New Deal are welcome to.
Agreed with the other comments. There is no need for politicians to be involved in this. They are all jumping on the “National Broadbandwagon Plan” http://rfblog.lbagroup.com/the-national-broadbandwagon-plan/