How to spend the excess failed stimulus money?

[Gaspar]

So, we didn't spend all of the stimulus money, and the money that we did spend didn't have the desired effect.

Should we take the remaining funds and use them for real stimulus initiatives or just blow them on powerful lobbies?

Today President Obama will announce close to a billion in spending on programs to touted to create 5,000 jobs (we already know we can multiply that by 0.1 for the real number).  Most of these 66 programs are related to providing broadband internet access and computers to low income, rural areas, and the homeless.  The initiatives consist of about a three quarters of a billion in stimulus money bolstered by 200 Million in private money from telephone carriers who stand to benefit from increased subscriptions.  This is a huge lobby driven bill.  If administration expectations are correct it will create 5,000 jobs at a cost of $199,000 per job (I'm betting on more than a million per job).

Mobile internet Wi-Fi vans, more computers for libraries, and free broadband service in government housing.  This is great news for low income families who struggle downloading large porn videos and frequently have to wait up to 20 minutes for a 10meg Paris Hilton video.

In a time like this, this is by far the stupidest waste I can possibly imagine.  Or is it?

As more and more families become forced into Obamaville housing projects and unemployment benefits run out, such luxuries may help to make the transition into complete dependence less painful.

Or, we could use the excess stimulus money to pay for extended unemployment benefits, after all, yesterday Nancy Pelosi said that "unemployment checks are the best way to create jobs."

http://wsbradio.com/blogs/jamie_dupree/2010/07/more-stimulus-pork.html

[sgrizzle]

How about roads, public facilities and other infrastructure?

Strange thing about spending money on building things, it gives people jobs building things, and then maintaining those things.

[Gaspar]

In many of the rural areas broadband is available by satellite or cable, and is still not widely utilized. This was proposed by the wired telephone lobby.  They couldn't justify the expense of doing it on their own because the market demand does not yet exist.  This gives them a leg up on the cable companies on your dime. 

It's a Chicago style business deal.

[Conan71]

I'm waiting for the: "Big deal, it's less than .01 percent of the Federal budget"

Nathan? Rwarn?

In case there are some on here who aren't familiar with the 'hood around OCU, that's not a place I'd care to be the van operator for the mobile laptop unit.

[swake]

In many of the rural areas broadband is available by satellite or cable, and is still not widely utilized. This was proposed by the wired telephone lobby.  They couldn't justify the expense of doing it on their own because the market demand does not yet exist.  This gives them a leg up on the cable companies on your dime.  

It's a Chicago style business deal.

no it's not.

Satellite internet is very expensive and is a completely crappy product and probably always will be.  Most rural people do not have any access to cable. Often people in small towns do have cable, but no or at least very slow cable internet. This isn't the fault of cable companies, the infrastructure for cable internet is expensive and hard to justify in systems with only a couple thousand subs (or less). And stringing cable line, and maintaining it outside of the towns to truly rural people is very cost prohibitive.

Telecom companies, either wireline or wireless probably are the way to get internet into rural areas. Rural people do have phone lines strung to them (because of fees we all pay to wire them) and most areas do have some sort of wireless service but there are real cost limitations to both. Phone aDSL on existing paired wires only works for people within about 17,000 feet of a DSLAM and a DSLAM isn't cheap, there have to be so many customers within the radius area of the DSLAM for the DSLAM to pay for itself without help. Wireless also might be an option, but upgrading a cell tower with 3g or 4g internet is again expensive and each tower has only a limited number of customers. The government is trying to help bridge these gaps.

[we vs us]

The spending is actually part of the original ARRA act, not a new stimulus program. 

[Hoss]

The spending is actually part of the original ARRA act, not a new stimulus program. 

There you go, with those pesky facts again.

[Conan71]

The spending is actually part of the original ARRA act, not a new stimulus program. 

Makes me feel better.  Gaspar, how about you?

[Gaspar]

The spending is actually part of the original ARRA act, not a new stimulus program. 

The intent of the act was to expand broadband coverage with matching funds.  We are now accepting "token" matching funds and financing the deal for wired telephone carriers.  The bang for the buck is not there.  Too few jobs for too much money, and the development of a system that must then be maintained without the demand to fund it.

We granted $350 million of that original stimulus bill to the Department of Commerce to develop a "broadband inventory map." Now we have a list of recipients that is 100% telephone industry based. 

We burnt $350 million to figure out how to spend $795 million and create 5,000 jobs?

[swake]

The intent of the act was to expand broadband coverage with matching funds.  We are now accepting "token" matching funds and financing the deal for wired telephone carriers.  The bang for the buck is not there.  Too few jobs for too much money, and the development of a system that must then be maintained without the demand to fund it.

We granted $350 million of that original stimulus bill to the Department of Commerce to develop a "broadband inventory map." Now we have a list of recipients that is 100% telephone industry based. 

We burnt $350 million to figure out how to spend $795 million and create 5,000 jobs?

It also levels the playing field for rural residents and businesses, giving them the same access to the internet and world that everyone else has. Without it our rural areas are just going to continue to die and keep getting poorer and poorer.

[Conan71]

It also levels the playing field for rural residents and businesses, giving them the same access to the internet and world that everyone else has. Without it our rural areas are just going to continue to die and keep getting poorer and poorer.

Rather ironic considering one of the attractions of living in a rural area for generations was to be free of all the trappings of the big city.

[Gaspar]

Without it our rural areas are just going to continue to die and keep getting poorer and poorer.

That's kind of a stretch. . .broadband internet is the reason that rural areas are not prosperous.  Really?

Large employers that locate in rural areas usually lay down a T1.  I don't think they're too concerned about DSL.  

Other (smaller) businesses fail because without jobs the market demand dries up.

The manufacturers that used to dominate our rural towns have moved their operations to Mexico or China.  Mexico must have a wonderful broadband program.

[nathanm]

Large employers that locate in rural areas usually lay down a T1.  I don't think they're too concerned about DSL.  

A "large employer" would find a T1 next to useless. My relatively small clients find T1s to be too slow. 3Mbps seems to be about a minimum to get work done these days, at least in industries where your suppliers require you use a bunch of web-based services to communicate with them.

And while there may be a few examples of waste in the program, I've seen a lot of grants/matching funds going to small wireless ISPs and rural telcos to help them expand their footprint into areas completely unserved by terrestrial Internet access. One of the rural telcos in Arkansas I sometimes consult with used round one funds to deploy FTTP to the small city they're located in.

Under a Republican Congress in the 90s, we got enormous (many many billions) subsidies to the big telcos that were contingent upon their making wide FTTP deployments which never happened. Well, they did happen, to the tune of about two or three cities.

Also, the jackass that wrote the article apparently doesn't get that they weren't allocated by Congressional fiat. They were awarded based on demonstrated need and cost effectiveness. A bidding process, in other words.