I frequently see reports with headlines like “US Stays at 15th Place in Broadband Penetration Worldwide” and corresponding arguments about why we need to spend taxpayer dollars to bring broadband to rural areas. There are two primary assumptions that are frequently used to support these arguments:
(1) It’s assumed broadband will facilitate greater online educational opportunities and
(2) Greater nationwide broadband penetration will somehow create jobs, increase GDP and make the U.S. more globally competitive.
I’ve spent a lot of time in technology-focused environments and I certainly enjoy the benefits of broadband, but I have doubts about the validity of these assumptions. The sad reality is that in a significant majority of homes broadband only makes mindless content, pornography, social networking and online gaming faster to consume, which actually reduces intellectual development and healthy social engagement. I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that the other 14 more connected countries are achieving greater GDP per capita—directly or indirectly—because of their higher broadband penetration.
Moreover, there’s a reason the areas that don’t have broadband don’t have broadband: They’re rural areas that are not hubs of commercial activity. This is not just a chicken-and-egg scenario; bringing broadband to my friend Bubba in SmallTown USA is not suddenly going to make the town a magnet for new corporate offices and a thriving local economy. There are many other more important factors that determine the appeal of a given location to corporations, e.g., the local tax environment, proximity to suppliers, proximity to a large customer base, availability of other infrastructure, availability of adequate professional service providers, etc.
With those thoughts in mind, as I read Norman J. Ornstein’s article, “First, Do No Harm--But Please Do Something,” I realized that these people who lobby for taxpayer subsidized broadband are not guided by any substantiated principles; they’re guided only by the assumptions above and the blind faith in “doing something . . . anything!” to create jobs is better than “doing nothing.” Of course spending money on the wrong solution to a problem is even worse than doing nothing.
This call to “do anything!” creates false hope and a delusional distraction from the reality that the challenge of job creation is much deeper and more systemic than merely installing broadband in rural America. Any rational person can intuitively see that to create jobs we must install rational federal economic policies and install new leadership in Washington to enforce the policies that reduce taxes to stimulate more consumer and corporate economic activity. Everything else is only an expensive distraction.
