You're looking at this all wrong. For an ISP to upgrade its infrastructure to provide more coverage and better speeds would not reflect a "a couple pennies per month...maybe a dollar", it would be significantly more that. So much more that it wouldn't be economically viable for everyone to keep the same service and, like you said, forced to downgrade or cancel their service, thus leaving no funding for the new infrastructure and nothing getting done. I think that was the point WrongSizeGlass was referring to.
Now, if tax money were used for the rollout then it would reflect a "pennies per month" shared across the board. I understand that some people don't like to see their money going to help someone else instead of them, but when it amounts to loose change for everyone instead of $10-$20 a month for a few (which gives you less subscribers/less money overall and no money for the infrastructure) then there's a very small burden to you and I. The benefit of full scale broadband is greater than the burden to the public, we ALL benefit.
Your refusal to support this seems to me that you don't believe broadband for the masses is a good thing. Government spending is in place to encourage economic growth and benefit the entire nation as a whole. I think that now, in the year 2010, having fast internet has moved beyond a source of entertainment and is progressing into a necessity that the US economy needs to stay competitive.
What I mean by this is the internet makes you smarter; it's access to the best source of knowledge, and it's FREE (minus the cost of internet service and infrastructure). Providing the country with knowledge makes the country smarter, a smarter country spurs more technical advancement, more technical advancement give you: flying cars, space elevators, a cleaner planet, etc...