Perhaps you remember all the talk about Obamaphones? As readers will recall, Obamaphones were talked about incessantly in right-wing media; supposedly this was a program for welfare recipients to get the nicest, newest iPhone (or whatever phone) without having to pay for it. Of course, the implication was always that your hard-earned money was going to support those people who didn't want to work. You know that rusty old trope they pull out: lazy, shiftless, not to be trusted, no work ethic, etc.
Anyway, good liberal that I am, I was listening to NPR on my way to work this morning and there was a talk about "rural broad band access" and increasing the "universal service fee" from $0.16/month to $1.97/month. For the uninitiated, the "universal service fee" is what paid for rural telephone access and was a program initiated by Ronald Reagan . . . it is also the program that was derided as "Obamaphones."
Well, now that it's "rural" (read "white") folks who want to socialize the cost of their telecommunication needs, I can't help but wonder where Greg Garrison and company are on this. Why haven't we heard a snappy "TrumpBand" or "Trumpernet" epithet?
Personally, I don't really care one way or the other about the additional $1.90/month. However, let's be clear: this is a tax, whether it is levied and collected by the government or levied and collected by a telecommunications company at the behest of the government. This is subsidization. This is in dereliction of the free market.
Where are all the John Galts of the world now? Oh yeah, I forgot, they only threaten to "go Galt" when its urban people of color who are subsidized. When it's rural white people, apparently there's some distinction (that escapes me).
Just one more observation of how the hysterical right has changed now that there is a rich, white, male plutocrat in office.
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