Democrats May Promise Broadband for All

andyring writes "According to CNS News Service, the Democrat Party will have an agenda that guarantees every American will have affordable access to broadband within five years as part of their 2006 election year agenda, according to Nancy Pelosi, House minority leader. Absent, of course, are any details as to how they will accomplish it when they are the party out of power in Congress."

Repeat after me

[stinerman]

The people in the party are Democrats. The party itself is the Democratic Party. In many parts of the US, calling it the "Democrat Party" is considered pejorative. Next time you may want to reword.

And don't forget...

[Noryungi]

... That the US are trillions of dollars into debt.

Broadband for all? I think not.

Re:Maybe it's just me...

[Intron]

Good point. How about just guaranteeing food, shelter and clean water. Nearly 18% of children in this country live live in poverty [wikipedia.org].

Re:Pelosi Railroaded Cynthia McKinney

[gfxguy]

With all due respect, Cynthia McKinney (and her dad) need to be railroaded the hell out of politics altogether. After all, it's all the fault of the J-E-W-S! So let's take more donations from Islamic terrorist groups and anyone else in the M.E. who cares to donate (when N.Y. turned down Saudi Arabia's money, McKinney was like "yoohoo! over here! I'll take it, and I won't complain about y'all!").

That she lost the primary was a great example of democracy at work. That her successor thought she could handle the senate after ONE term as congresswoman, which opened the door for McKinney to come back, was a travesty.

Re:A Chicken in Every Pot

[Crystalmonkey]

The constitution doesn't mention two parties, they're actually what the framers were afraid of. (Majority/Minority Factions)

The truth about "poverty" in the US.

[tjic]

The truth is, there is almost no true poverty in the US.

The following facts [heritage.org] about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau are taken from various government reports:

• In 1995, 41 percent of all "poor" households owned their own homes.
• The average home owned by a person classified as "poor" has three bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
• Over three-quarters of a million "poor" persons own homes worth over $150,000; and nearly 200,000 "poor" persons own homes worth over $300,000.
• Only 7.5 percent of "poor" households are overcrowded. Nearly 60 percent have two or more rooms per person.
• The average "poor" American has one-third more living space than the average Japanese does and four times as much living space as the average Russian. 2
• Seventy percent of "poor" households own a car; 27 percent own two or more cars.
• Ninety-seven percent have a color television. Nearly half own two or more televisions.
• Nearly three-quarters have a VCR; more than one in five has two VCRs.
• Two-thirds of "poor" households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
• Sixty-four percent of the "poor" own microwave ovens, half have a stereo system, and over a quarter have an automatic dishwasher.
• As a group, the "poor" are far from being chronically hungry and malnourished. In fact, poor persons are more likely to be overweight than are middle-class persons. Nearly half of poor adult women are overweight.
• The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children, and in most cases is well above recommended norms.
• Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher-income children and have average protein intakes that are 100 percent above recommended levels.
• Most poor children today are in fact super-nourished, growing up to be, on average, one inch taller and ten pounds heavier that the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.

Re:A Chicken in Every Pot

[thrillseeker]

Clinton was NOT impeached! He served out his term in office!

Impeached != Removed from office.

In India...

[rathehun]

...one of the promises of the present government was that it would make broadband affordable.

What happened was pretty decent, for a government programme. 256 kbps broadband was rolled out in all the larger cities, at Rs. 500 (USD 10) per month - however, there was a rider - a 1 GiB transfer limit.

This scheme, however, was sufficient to start a major price war, and broadband prices have been steadily falling, upto the point where it's now being pushed way more heavily than dial-up.

The problems:

• Lack of heavy-usage plans
• Nightmarish problems with free-usage hours, and subsequent billing
• Billing
• Last mile hasn't been unbundled, so each company has to lay their own cables, resulting in private companies being unable to offer their lower prices/higher usage plans to customers who want it

However,

• Since the government monopoly has to, by law service rural areas, the problem of a lack of access, that one hears about so much on /. is really not a problem
• Cheap!
• Excellent (personal experience) service, downtime of about a week in the last year of my having it
• Technical support, while incredibly hard to actually *find*, is remarkably well informed - came home, and was happily using the command line on my linux server, to which the line was connected
• Typing from it right now ;-)

Whether it was the best idea, whether it helped starving people...those are all debatable points. But surely, it is hardly an incredibly expensive project, which will kill off the American economy?

Even if the government doesn't offer fiber-connections to the rest of America, 256k broadband is perfectly capable of accessing Wikipedia, joining and taking part in mailing groups...there will be a section of the society whom it will help.

Cheers,
Rahul.

In case you don't trust the Heritage Foundation

[Dster76]

and gee, I can't think of why that might be. Go here [americanprogress.org], about halfway down, to read up on poverty. Or, go here [fair.org] to read up on poverty and access to food.

Oh wait, I remember now how to deal with professional trolling organizations...

Re:Pelosi Railroaded Cynthia McKinney

[LordKazan]

You clearly failed economics. Only a fool or an ideaologue things the "Fair Tax" is actually fair. Any taxing schema that doesn't account for the Law of Dimishing Returns as applied to income is unfair. The only tax system that accounts for the LoDR applied to Income is the progressive tax system. Even the MOST "LIBERAL" VERSION of the progressive tax still greatly favors the rich.

The only fair tax is a flat tax on UTILITY of income - which translates into a growing % of income as income grows. (Math at bottom of post) This way each persons buying power is affected in the same ammount. Infact using a PURE Utility-Flattax marginal tax rate becomes unbounded after a certain point because they gain no additional utility for each additional dollar they make. However this unbounded behavior is undesirable because it becomes disincentive. So we strike a balance between this, the need to foster investment, and that results in the tiered taxation system.

This balance of fairness, investment and suplicity is delicate. Right now, thanks to Bush and the republicans, it's been tweaked to be too far in favor of the rich and is creating a larger imbalance in the economy in its entiry.

----------------

Here comes the math

Mu$(i) is the marginal utility of a each i-th dollar of income - all we need to know about this is lim[Mu$(i), i->infinity] = 0

Net utility of income would be the integral of Mu$(i) 0 to i income.

by now if you don't already see the rest of the solution I am wasting my time talking to you because you haven't the math knowledge to understand the argument.

Overblown

[Politburo]

This was reported as a footnote in a speech Leader Pelosi gave to the Communication Workers of America. Although it's well known that I generally defend the Democrats, in this case Pelosi was just pandering, imo. The CWA is the union that would install any 'nationwide universal broadband'. Universal BB access was not the focus of the speech and the little mention of it was blown out of proportion by Drudge, as usual. The submitter misread the article, as Pelosi was listing the goals of the Democrats after the 2006 election, not the goals for the current Congress.

Also, there is no "Democrat Party". My membership card says "Democratic National Committee".

Re:You have it all wrong.

[jaaronc]

...better attitudes toward the US abroad, would dramatically increase our national security

Niccolò Machiavelli [wikipedia.org] -- It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both. [brainyquote.com]

Peace at any price was the mantra of pre-war (WWII) europe, and it didn't exactly work out the way they wanted it. Keeping our nose out of other people's business was the pre-war (WWII) policy of the US government, and it didn't work so well, either. Thankfully, we have a president who learned the lessons of 50 years ago, who is willing to stop problems before they escalate to the point where they cause 62 millinon deaths [wikipedia.org] before it's over.

Re:This is the message they've spent years on?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait to get in line for 6 months for an MRI.

Ok, then you can do without it. Seriously. Healthcare will be nationalized in this country, and it will be done in under 5 years, or there won't be healthcare. If you think the current system has a chance in hell of continuing as it is with out-of-control costs and nickel-and-dime co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses and add-on fees, you are out of your mind. Somehow, every other industrialized nation in the world manages a system like that, and you don't see those people flocking to the U.S. to stand in line for an MRI that will cost them $3000. In fact, what you're seeing now is U.S.ians flocking to other nations to buy drugs and even seek medical care overseas [slate.com] because it's too expensive at home.

I don't know what crack you're smoking when you equate single-payer healthcare with nothing more than "long lines" but you must be making a lot of money, or very young, or very healthy, because if you had worked for a living and needed medical care in the last 10 years, you would know that the system is currently in full-blown crisis mode. Hospitals are closing across the country because they can't pay their bills because the growing ranks of uninsured simply show up in the emergency room when they're sick, and then default on their bills. This shows up as higher costs for you, so I don't know what you expect to do. Maybe draw up a bill requiring physicians to default on their Hippocratic Oath.

And you might look around a little before you get off on your Bill O'Reilley-fueled rant -- the Democratic vision of what we need as a country is preferred over the Do-Nothing-But-Waste-Money Republican vision in poll after poll.

Re:A Chicken in Every Pot

[giorgiofr]

So you'd be against spending $40 less each month with that being offset by government spending?

Yes. Government = me, because I work. Apparently, you don't. Loser.

Would you also to pay tolls for every road that you use?

Yes. Actually, I already do.

How about paying a tax every time you cross state lines on each good that you purchase?

It's their right to ask me. It's my right not to conduct business in their country.

How about paying into a private militia to protect you and your family from rival factions?

That would be awesome. Maybe our useless police would be disbanded and we'd have effective security.

You like to be in charge of collecting and purifying your own drinking water?

Yes. Even though it seems like I can pay someone to do that for me, if I don't want to do it.

What will happen is that my tax dollars will be used for that and that my friend is just wrong.
What has happened is certain legislators have realized that broadband has become a necessary and basic right. As an American citizen, you're forced to pay for certain things for yours and others benefit. This is win-win and you're a crybaby.

What has happened is you're a fucking bloodleech who wants to surf with my money. This is a no-no and you're a fascist. Oh sorry I meant a communist. Oh well not much difference anyway.
You see... you're forced to X is always wrong. Loser.

Re:Maybe it's just me...

[Hackie_Chan]

Neither of those things will make your health care affordable though, the only way it will be affordable is if you tax wealthy Americans more and use their money to pay for it. Which to me, just seems a bit too socialist.

I hate it when just because you want to tax those who have more that you're "socialist". It's stupid poo-flinging arguments like that which've made it so that 45 million Americans are uninsured. Let me quote myself in a post I made earlier on /. [slashdot.org]:

Just look at the Toyota plant in Ontario [harpers.org] [harpers.org]; The company turned down hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies in the United States because, when compared to Canadians, U.S. workers are too hard to train, often illiterate, and expensive to insure. Also according to General Motors Corp. chairman and chief executive G. Richard Wagoner Jr. the American car manufacturers are losing [washingtonpost.com] [washingtonpost.com] their ability to compete in the global marketplace in large measure because of the crushing burden of health care costs.
The US is the only industrial country without a national healthcare system. We're the most dissatisfied [umaine.edu] [umaine.edu] out of the top ten. Pay almost twice as much [newsbatch.com] [newsbatch.com] as number two. Yet still 45 millions are uninsured [census.gov] [census.gov].

You're saying to me that it's not in the best interest of the rich to have insured Americans? As Adam Smith said; it's justified to take from the rich as it's them who benefit the most from the smooth functioning of the state.

Re:You have it all wrong.

[irablum]

I call shenanigans! Bush has the worst national security record since Pearl Harbor, and he's considered one of the most conservative presidents since Reagan. I think some liberal policies, which tend to lead to a stronger economy at home and better attitudes toward the US abroad, would dramatically increase our national security.

"better attitudes toward the US abroad"? I quote this twice because I disagree. Now, granted we've had 2 Democratic administrations (Clinton and Carter) and 5 Republican Administrations (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Bush) since 1970. Carter, despite how much of a statesman he became after leaving office, was a disaster both at home and abroad. Clinton oversaw a great rebirth in the economy, but its kind of difficult to give him credit for it. In fact the greatest growth came while he was most distracted by impeachment hearings. Nixon had his ups (China) and downs (Vietnam) in foreign policy and was pretty much a disaster at home. Bush elder and Reagan, in many ways, were unmatched in our foreign policy. But they had their ups and downs on the home front as well.

I'm of the firm belief that the economy is wholly independent of who sits in the white house. The feeling that if we elect a Dem, we'll have more money in the future or that if we elect a Republican, we'll have more money in the future, I think that that feeling is not only simplistic, but just plain wrong. Our domestic future is determined by our domestic present, and not who we elect.

I think the question of whether democrats or republicans are "better" at foreign policy may be a myth related to Carter's problems. Clinton was no saint (either on a personal level or otherwise) but he wasn't a complete disaster on foreign policy (maybe I'll get flamed for that statement).

The issue of who makes the US more liked world-wide has nothing to do with our actual foreign policy. (at least I hope not). I, as an American citizen, have no interest in making the US popular to other countries. I don't want it to be necessarily feared, though that is effective in many cases. The US is the richest and most powerful country in the world. We have armed servicemen on all 7 continents and a strong naval presence in all 4 oceans and in most major seas (like the Mediteranean, Baltic, North Sea, etc...) Are we the worlds policemen? yes and no. We are when it is in our interest to be so. In other cases we are content to let well enough alone. When the UN sends in troops, a good portion of these troops are American soldiers with American hardware. The Korean war was a UN engagement. As was Somalia and Bosnia. The first Gulf War was as well.

In many parts of the world, the US will never be popular. With the government, that is. I noticed on my trips abroad that as an American citizen, I was always treated with friendship and smiles. Of course, that is fairly limited, as I've never been to Africa or the Middle East. I was particularly taken with the way that Chinese citizens were in awe of me as an American and were always quick to say how cool they thought the US was. I guess my point here is that most people in other countries like America, despite what the media wants us to think, just like most people in America support Bush, despite what the media wants us to think.

Back on-topic, the "broadband for all" promise only matters to geeks, really. It will be great for the country, but most people aren't going to change their vote over it. When Al Gore championed the internet in the mid-80's and created the funding necessary to create the WWW technology and services, it took over a decade for it to improve worker productivity and the economy, but still led to ridicule for Gore and the Democrats.

Gore may have "championed the internet" but even if he did, and was ridiculed for it, the US congress had very little to do with the success of the internet. In fact, I'd say that the reason that Gore was crucified for his self-aggrand

Re:The truth about "poverty" in the US.

[grgyle]

Ahh, what a lovely misuse of statistics to support an agenda, that the american poor somehow have it all rosy:

"* In 1995, 41 percent of all "poor" households owned their own homes."

So you are using a minority percentage to somehow make a case against the general case of being "poor". Also, owning a home typically means debt. If 41% of poor had positive net equity, then this might mean something.

"* The average home owned by a person classified as "poor" has three bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio."

Irrelevant, and speaks nothing to the home value, and again nothing to the indebtedness of the the family. The typical inner-city decay crack-house would still meet your categorization. And "average" is the most misleading and useless statistical category one can spout, it says nothing about the distribution of the data.

"* Over three-quarters of a million "poor" persons own homes worth over $150,000; and nearly 200,000 "poor" persons own homes worth over $300,000"

First, 3/4 million is a seemingly huge "oh wow" number to throw out with no context. Must be a lot huh? How would we know? When there are hundreds of millions in your population then you are actually speaking about a mere sliver. Let's look at that sliver of population then. 150k won't even allow you a 1 br studio in most cities. In Seattle, 300k will barely get you a livable home (aside from realtor "fixer uppers") anywhere near the city.

I'm curious of your underlying reasons for trying to make the claim, with a very biased selection of statistics, that there is no poserty problem in America.

A good question. How would *you* do it?

[RomulusNR]

Absent, of course, are any details as to how they will accomplish it when they are the party out of power in Congress."

Beware such nonsense as desperate conservative demagoguery. Conservatives, like the annoying smart-assed jocks in high school, are good at saying things that sound derogatory but are really baseless and meaningless.

The question to be put to such wags is this: How would *you* get something accomplished as a party that has zero power in the government? There really isn't much you can do, is there?

Libertarian

[SonicSpike]

You just described the libertarian principles in a nutshell:

-limited government
-free markets
-personal freedom
-individual responsibility

According to your post you are a libertarian (lower case "L").

Don't believe me?
Take this test and find out:
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html [theadvocates.org]