FCC Plans Shutdown of Affordable Connectivity Program As GOP Withholds Funding -...
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FCC Plans Shutdown of Affordable Connectivity Program As GOP Withholds Funding
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In a letter, GOP lawmakers complained that most of the households receiving the subsidy already had broadband service before the program existed. They threatened to withhold funding and criticized what they called the "Biden administration's reckless spending spree." The letter was sent by the highest-ranking Republicans on committees with oversight responsibility over the ACP, namely Sen. John Thune (R-SD), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), and Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio). With no resolution in sight, the FCC announced that it would have to start sending out notices about the program's expected demise. "With less than four months before the projected program end date and without any immediate additional funding, this week the Commission expects to begin taking steps to start winding down the program to give households, providers, and other stakeholders sufficient time to prepare," the FCC said in an announcement yesterday.
The Biden administration has requested $6 billion to fund the program through December 2024. As of now, the FCC said it "expects funding to last through April 2024, running out completely in May." FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has repeatedly asked Congress for more ACP funding, and sent a letter (PDF) to lawmakers yesterday in which she repeated her plea. The chairwoman's letter said that 23 million households are enrolled in the discount program. [...] Rosenworcel warned that the impending ACP shutoff "would undermine the historic $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program," a different program created by Congress to subsidize ISPs' expansion of broadband networks throughout the US. The discount and deployment programs complement each other because "the ACP supports a stable customer base to help incentivize deployment in rural areas," Rosenworcel wrote.
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There goes the GOP again, loving the little people.
Not like my kid requires that for school or anything. Be helpful for some of these parents that can't afford broadband. I know several that all they have is a phone.
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This will apply largely to people living in rural areas, the very same people who keep voting the GOP into Congress. Yet another crystal clear example of people voting against their own interests. I'm sure the local AM radio personalities will spin it in a way to make it seem like evil Democrats did this.
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No, there are plenty of people that lie and cheat and get the support. My ex-father-in-law is one, happy to lie to the power company to get subsidized power so he can sit in the Lazy Boy all day with the AC cranked. And yes, he votes GOP.
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Ronald Reagan invented the myth of the "welfare queen", but for every Linda Taylor there are 50 people with legitimate need. I would not consider a 2% rate of fraud to be widespread. Especially if you consider that IRS estimates that about 15% of taxes go unpaid through fraud or evasion. But those small business owners that play games with their taxes are never the subject of the GOP platform. Curious indeed.
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He can vote away his fake subsidy, see if I care.
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Ronald Reagan invented the myth of the "welfare queen", but for every Linda Taylor there are 50 people with legitimate need.
No, President Reagan did not invent the myth of the welfare queen [wikipedia.org], as can be learned by the slightest amount of research. The term was coined in 1974 and picked up by Reagan two years later. And, as far as Linda Taylor goes, she too surfaced in 1974, meaning that you can't blame Reagan for her notoriety either.-
Basically you just pointed out that he really meant to say "Reagan popularised the myth", not sure that bit of pedantry really changes anything.
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Actually it was Bill Clinton's 1996 welfare reform that threw 10's of thousands of people off welfare ~ 70% of which were children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Clinton wanted the Democratic party to raise money from corporate America, believing he could court the typical republican voting rich and the democrat base would have no choice but to stay To gain corporate donors, Clinton passed the 1996 welfare reform act, the 1994 Omnibus crime bill that grew our prisons from 700K to the current 2.3Mill-
"Clinton killed off Glass-Stegall" The R's in Congress were the driving force behind gutting Glass-Stegall on the basis that their rich friends needed new avenues to squeeze the American people out of their wealth. They succeeded, and are still at it.
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the myth of the "welfare queen"
Myth??
LOL...you must live a sheltered life.
I invite you to drive by one of the many projects down here in New Orleans, especially in late spring/early summer when you can see them all sitting out on the front porches.
But those small business owners that play games with their taxes
What do you have against small businesses taking every legal deduction available to them.
Do you voluntarily pay more taxes each year than you are obliged by law to pay?
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If gerrymandering wasn't a thing, I would accept your conclusion. With gerrymandering? Fuck you and your judgement of the situation.
Actually, even without gerrymandering, the situation is not so cut and dry. Voting along party lines is the slow and guaranteed lane to Fascism. Paying attention to the individuals doesn't help as they all lie and misrepresent as the goal is to get elected, not to actually fulfill any promises.
Fuck you for blaming the voter. No reasonable options are even being presented.
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This program has the stink of regulatory capture.
I pay $25/month for 50 Mbits Internet without any discount. That's $5 less than the "discount" the ISPs are milking out of the FCC. I live in a small town suburb so it's not like I have a lot of ISPs competing for my money.
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All Federal spending of this nature can become patronage for some private party. In the case of American ISPs it's almost inevitable that it would happen that way, since there is very little healthy competition.
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You just have a great plan.
The ISPs worked with to government so that they could offer a new price point to people who are actually poor and keep it locked behind welfare qualifications so cheapskates that can afford more can’t get at it. One of those “win-win” things.
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I pay $120/mo for Starlink, which started at $100/mo and has been raised twice. My only other choice is a 10Mb connection from Frontier for $75.
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Wireless broadband is great if you otherwise can't get a hard line connection, but wireless technology has its own caveats and the services generally cost about the same or more than a wired/fiber connection.
Wired or wireless, telco companies are gonna be telco companies. Heck, the wireless broadband providers have begun playing the same "bundling" games as the cable companies. For example, T-Mobile advertises a $30/mo home internet plan, but the catch is you're only eligible for that discounted rate if y
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I`m sure many Slashdot posters know kids who have iPhones. But I rather doubt that is the norm.
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Why did your city shut down all the public libraries?
You know the federal government is already covering the cost of internet access at schools and libraries via the rate program?
So why do these families only have a phone right now? Why don't they the subsidized internet for their family? If they don't have Broadband service now, how will they be hurt when a program they aren't part of loses funding?
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"... via the eRate program"
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Don't worry, you're not getting out of that Comcast contract even if the government pulls the plug on this.
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They did Starlink cannot deliver fast enough speeds to qualify. I know, I have Starlink.
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by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @05:42PM (#64145371)
Suddenly the budget matters when a democrat is in power.
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by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @07:42PM (#64145607)
That is correct. That's the GOP playbook. When in charge slash regulatory spending, give huge tax breaks to the rich. when they lose, blame the deficits on the Democrats and cry "budget, budget, budget". Since Regan, some $30T+ has been tacked onto the deficit to pay for GOP tax cuts. And by the way, government spending accounts for 20% of GDP. Slash government spending and by definition an instant recession hits- 2 quarters later.
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Seriously? Their excuse is that people already had broadband? My in-laws are on a fixed income and it helps them out tremendously.
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brining hi bandwidth to lo income households benefits society in the same way the a good, well funded public education system helps society. Are you one of those who want no taxes and a bunch of uneducated unemployables running around?
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Your grammar is a good example of why the public education system is a failure though.
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Correct. We should be funding better public education too.
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by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @05:50PM (#64145381)
Republicans won't take federal money to give some kids free lunches at school [businessinsider.com].
Republicans voted against [theguardian.com] capping the cost of insulin to $35.
Republicans voted against a border security bill [newsweek.com] because it might help President Biden during the election, all the while whining about the border not being secure.
Some Republicans voted against a bill to reauthorize funding to combat human trafficking [usatoday.com].
Almost all Republican Senators voted against a bill to protect veterans [newsweek.com] who may have been exposed to toxic materials during their service.
The leading Republican candidate is hoping for the economy to crash [cnn.com] so he can use it against President Biden.
Are we sure these people are working to better America?
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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @05:56PM (#64145395)
Republican politicians have always campaigned on the idea that the government will hurt you.
They promise that, if you elect them, they will prove it to you. -
Plutocrat tax cuts take priority. Gordon Jesus Gekko said so.
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If you need to stomp everyone else to succeed then you are doing it wrong.
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I mean, if they're so worried with taxing the public too much, they could cut the biggest spender a bit.
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I mean, if they're so worried with taxing the public too much, they could cut the biggest spender a bit.
That would by far be the entitlements programs in the US.
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Charities are a joke. The total amount of donated money is a tiny insignificant amount of money compared to government spending! You may not like to be forced to pay for long term things for the benefit of society and pay the price of civilization (tax.) I don't like being forced to pay for the biggest most oversized and wasteful military on earth but the majority are cowardly suckers who agree to it. I resent that waste; I complain and vote to try to change it...
I don't mind paying for civilization. Wast
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Well you're going to be forced to charity regardless. Taxes only go up in the long run until a nation ceases to be.
So that's a given.
You act like you wouldn't be paying taxes anyway.
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I don't like forced charity either but that's what society is. Society is a program that forces people to give charity in the form of thought attention behavior, social prostrations of all sorts are charity. Believe it in the concept of law is another charity.
That's pretty much what society is. A system of forced charity.
That's why I don't love it but I'll use it when I can and avoid it when I can't.
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Both parties are working towards their own goals. The Democrats taste a bit better, but adding sugar to the poison doesn't really motivate a person to accept the poison.
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I received a letter from my Cable ISP to sign up for the new program that paid $30 towards your Internet bill. The cost of the ISP account was $120 per 30 day period and I would have had to pay $90 after the taxpayer funded payment. I would also have to sign a two year contract. Now that the taxpayer's won't help pay the bill those people will have to pay the full price for the next 18 months.
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1) This began as a Covid Emergency Broadband provision since federal, state, and local governments forced hundreds of millions of people to stay home and/or lose their jobs. Internet access and cell phone data suddenly became a necessity for employment, ordering food, medicine, etc.. Is the Covid Emergency still occurring?
2) The Covid EBB was then converted into the ACP and related programs which provide Internet, cell phones (and data). What exactly are the problems this program is supposed to fix?
3) What are the metrics for when we know the program has been successful in fixing the problem? What are the metrics for how we'd know the program has NOT been successful?
4) What are the terminate/sunset conditions of this program? For how long do we need to pay for Internet/phone service for ~100 million people -i is this a lifetime entitlement to Internet/phone service? Or is there some limit such as monetary amount of length of time someone can use the program?
5) Which corporations are receiving the federal dollars to provide or administer the service? What integrity oversight/spotlight mechanisms are we putting in place to see how much money those corporations are getting from the program, what they do with that money, the quality of the services the provide, whether they should be prohibited - as federal contractors - from spending the next 50 years lobbying Congress to continue/expand the program regardless of whether there are any meaningful success metrics in place?
6) Since the government doesn't have the money to cover its expenses and every year adds a trillion or so dollars to our shared debt, which impacts all of us, what are the reasons this particular program is worth the billions of dollars it will cost to administer annually as it grows in the future? Again, what are the metrics we will use to annually audit that cost/benefit analysis to ensure the voters and legislature maintain a fully-informed oversight of the program?
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Poor people. Republicans don't like that, and I suspect...
clearly you think being poor is part of life and we need to keep people that way. How dare they be so entitled.
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Nope it really hasn't. Quite the opposite, virtually all research has shown that the poor (we're talking here about people who can't freely afford basic internet) are in a locked loop of being too poor to better themselves due to not having the basic finances required for reskilling or finding other work, and the only way they are able to get out of it is with a minimal amount of assistance.
But keep living in your right wing fantasy world.
Now your republican fantasy thinks you can get internet for sub $30 e
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So you agree with me, it's not about money, it's about skills, education, single mother households etc. Giving money doesn't fix that, you need to change the situation and culture people are in that locks them in that loop. That's what the research has shown, giving money to people with no skills doesn't fix them having no skills.
Ah, when you can't win an argument, you just go ad hominem.
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You are not supposed to actually dig into and ask questions like this and try to go deep into the actual concept or workings of a program like this. Instead, summarize with a very simple one liner for a headline that shows you care for X and party Y does not. The details of how it works, if it works, who is paying for it, who is profiting for it, etc should be irrelevant.
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Since the government doesn't have the money to cover its expenses and every year adds a trillion or so dollars to our shared debt, which impacts all of us,
..... why do Republicans keep wanting to cut taxes for the wealthy? And, no, those tax cuts don't pay for themselves.
Why do Republicans want to cripple the IRS?
Why, in most discussions of the Federal deficit is only one side of the problem (spending) ever mentioned?
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Fear.
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Why, in most discussions of the Federal deficit is only one side of the problem (spending) ever mentioned?
Because spending more than you have is by definition....deficit spending.
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For the exact same reasons Democrats implement social programs. To enrich their buddies. You don't think the billions spent on social programs actually goes entirely to the people it is intended to help? The money is eaten up by contracts using their friend's companies.
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There's that fag talk again
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That's how much the 1% of every year in uncollected taxes. That's before we talk about repealing the bush and Trump era tax cuts which were in the trillions. Let alone taking back the 5.5 trillion that was handed to the 1% during the covid disaster.
As for the national debt we owe most of it to ourselves and could effortlessly pay it back with just the $500 billion in savings we would get from switching to a universal health Care system. But then if we did that all those private equity firms that have bee -
maintenance costs to build and maintain a connected Nation. Maintenance costs are recurring. This maintains the platform by which modern business and education operate upon which the rest of the nation sits.
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This subsidy was studied by the GAO and found to be a source of massive waste, and abuse of both what it was suppose to do and the funds it was spending. They were suppose to be fixing that but the FCC has kept delaying or not doing it.
The person who is looking into this waste, and was not even quoted just has stuff taken out of context has been looking into the various programs that do funding, there are 15 separate agencies who have more than 130 separate programs for funding broadband, so the people under this would be covered by better managed programs.
This is the FCC upset because they would be missing out on money they are not using properly.
https://www.gao.gov/products/g... [gao.gov]
the real question is why did the person who put up the summary deliberately misrepresent what was actually happening.-
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @07:26PM (#64145589)
You have been drinking the propaganda I see.
Massive waste? There is no mention of anything like that. They haven't even come to final conclusions. They mention issues about not enough people using it due to enrollment problems, marketing, etc. So it's using LESS money than it should.
"Waste" in terms of not enough people getting it, yes. "Waste" as in wasting resources, no, the opposite in fact.
There are groups manipulating you and you can't see it.
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I can assure you that telco bills mysteriously went up $30 when they knew the government would automatically subsidize $30.
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Gee, I wonder...
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I think the slashdot forums basically being anti-GOP bukkake probably answers your question.
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"Thrifty working class" is code for "too poor to have leisure time for complaining."
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by renegade600 ( 204461 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @06:05PM (#64145421)
"In a letter, GOP lawmakers complained that most of the households receiving the subsidy already had broadband service before the program existed"
It is like saying you cannot get food stamps because you were eating prior to getting them.
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You don't understand. If you had internet and ate food you're not poor and thus any benefit you get from the government is an an unfair entitlement simply robbing the marginalised rich class.
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/s of course.
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by BrookSmith ( 2949941 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @06:19PM (#64145447)
Wasteful? maybe these guys haven't heard of the military, who still can't pass an audit.
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These people literally attend daily cocktail parties on the public dime and then call it "wasteful" for normal people to get a break on anything.
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The discount and deployment programs complement each other because "the ACP supports a stable customer base to help incentivize deployment in rural areas," Rosenworcel wrote.
So we pay the ISPs to build out their network, then we pay the customers to cover the cost of service from the ISPs?
Why is the government funding the consumption AND the provision of internet service? Seems to it should pick one side, either providers or consumers, and let the other enjoy the benefits of the other.
It's like we're subsidizing buying tickets for the local NFL franchise, and also paying for the players salary (the locals cover the cost of the stadium!)...
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Not only that, the suggested renewal of the program (which was intended as a temporary COVID subsidy for kids that had to school from home) allows the FCC to set prices, to set fees, to set broadband limits, to tell companies where they should expand, what customers they can accept, set limits on the access etc.
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No it shouldn't. Different sides of funding cause different effects on a market, especially when that funding is conditional. Expanding and upgrading broadband does nothing to bring down costs for those who can't afford it, covering costs for those who can afford it does nothing to expand and upgrade a network.
Funny you should say that. The former increases attendance and interest in a sport, the latter (in a world of buying talent) improves the chances for a local team providing potential fame and tourism
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I would say it is more like a chance at grift on both sides of the equation. (since when is grift no longer a word? wtf Mozilla?) Who exactly do you think is befitting from all that money? Businesses, not people.
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Nice of you all to ignore the real elephant in the room, though.
The problem with the Affordable Connectivity Program is that it just served as an excuse for broadband provider to increase prices or sell more expensive packages to people. When the program first began, I was paying Spectrum over $100/month for my gigabit cable connection (40mbits/sec upload speed though). I completely ignored the ACP because I was sure my income meant I wouldn't qualify for it.
Then I sold that small house that I'd been fixing up for a couple years previous, and bought a little bit bigger place in town. That meant I had to cancel my broadband service and re-establish it at the new address. That's when the Spectrum rep told me, "Oh man, you've been paying too much! I'll get you a better rate!" and proceeded to sign me up fort the ACP to give me a $30/month rate discount. Never was there any discussion about if I qualified or not. He just keyed a bunch of stuff in his computer while on the phone with me and it was a done deal.
One of my good friends who sells insurance, the next county over told me she received the ACP discount too and just thought "everybody was getting that". She earns a 6 figure income.
Now, I keep getting (daily!) reminders from Spectrum via email and phone calls that my ACP is "up for renewal soon" and I need to fill all this paperwork out at a government web site to ensure I keep getting my reduced prices. I took a look at the site and there's NO way I'm supposed to qualify for it, *except* for the fact my adult daughter lives with me in the upstairs portion of the place I bought (it's a duplex). I bought this with the idea I'd probably do an AirBnB type thing with the upstairs for extra money, but she broke up with the guy she'd been living with and needed somewhere to go. So I let her have it for now. She's not working right now and qualifies for Medicaid, which would technically qualify. Except I've filled out the forms 3 times now and keep getting rejected. They say she has the "wrong type of insurance" based on the card I sent them a copy of, or they insist she's at a different address than I am (because it's Unit A vs just the street address with no unit number for the upstairs, per the post office) and they don't care she shares the one Internet service here....
So yep - GOP is dead accurate. This program was totally mismanaged and is surely wasteful. What we NEED is to get fairer pricing to begin with from the ISPs.
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That's because whenever the Democrats come up with poorly thought out solution to address a genuine issue (in this case, the failing of the free market to produce affordable home broadband options), the GOP has to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Every. Single. Time. I'd fall off my chair if the GOP actually said they're nixing funding but are going to actually implement some other sort of scheme to rein in the telcos' greedy behavior. But nope, that's not gonna happen. It's like the same thing
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My ISP offered everybody the discount deal! no questions asked.
Even though it's defrauding the government program to do so--- nobody expects anybody to go to jail over it because that is how things "work." At most they get a fine which will not be huge enough and will be passed to customers and not to management who IS responsible.
You can't police everybody using these programs but you can catch those who exploit it and punish them! (like you don't prevent most crime but react afterwards.) But we never pu
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We're piling on the GOP for a reason. Don't pretend they are doing this because it was mismanaged. If that were the case they would call for an overhaul / review of how it was managed. They aren't. They are just using the missmanagement as an excuse for something that they generally want: no "handouts" to anyone (unless you're filthy rich of course).
The GOP can be right about management while still be wrong and rightfully criticised about their actions.
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If they want to help these people, give them the $30 and let them spend it on what they think they need instead of what the government decides they need.
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Democrats love social programs giving out free, BUT working taxpayers end up footing the social freebie programs. How about you work and pay for stuff. Like for me, I didn't get stuff when I couldn't pay for it !
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I believe these schemes only create distortions in their respective markets that effectively benefit the provider not the household.
Rather than the ISP offering reasonable pricing or at least a lower pricing tier for their market programs like ACP enable ISP pricing to remain higher so that the ISP can rake in more cash. This is a poor use of taxpayer dollars designed to help the poor. It is far more constructive to invest the money in other ways to provide general assistance that don't devolve into selec
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