Republicans slam broadband discounts for poor people, threaten to kill program::Thune, Cruz complain that $30 discounts go to people who “already had broadband.”
Republicans slam broadband discounts for poor people, threaten to kill program::Thune, Cruz complain that $30 discounts go to people who “already had broadband.”
In America, even the Democrats would block something like that.
Both parties in our country have decided that nothing should happen unless a person who is already rich gets richer. That Government should never take any action if it possibly reduces the chance that someone else would make profit off of a problem.
Like we don’t even build roads any more, unless we make it a public/private partnership where taxpayers pay to build the road, and then a private company takes over toll collection.
My town built a bridge across a river - not even really a new bridge, sort of replacing a existing bridge that was free to cross. And in the last few months of construction, the city announced that they’d partnered with a private company to collect tolls to fun maintenance. It was $2.50 to cross (one way) for cars when the bridge opened - like 6 years ago - and they’re increased the tolls every opportunity since then. So now it costs more than $5 - each way - to cross the bridge for cars. The price for a Semi-truck to cross has on;y risen by 25% in the same time.
And they’re notoriously bad. They double bill. They bill errantly (sending people bills who didn’t even use the bridge). They’re tolling system will be months behind. They’ll put liens on cars that they claim crossed even when they haven’t yet sent a bill.
The city government knows about all these problems and they are just like “our hands are tied, we signed a contract with them”. So that bridge will be a Govenrment-enforced, for-profit scam for at least another 30 years.
And sometimes the city doesn’t even get their full cut, because they apparently promised in the contract with the company that there would be a certain minimum daily use. So some days the city forgoes their cut, in order for the company to hit their promised profit for that day.
Mind you, this company didn’t’ have any part in building the bridge. And they don’t run physical tollboths. They just built an array of cameras and sensors and have a payment portal website. And yet we let them gatekeep the bridge and the money generated by the bridge.
And of course, use of the bridge is always low, because people drive 20 miles out of their way to use the free bridge. And the more they raise the tolls, the more people avoid the bridge. So the more days the city doesn’t even take a cut.
This bridge is basically in the middle of a city - so some people commuted across the old bridge for free, now they have to pay $10 in tolls just to go to work and back home. Or they add 40 minutes to their commute, add unnecessary traffic to other roads in town.
Just because a Democrat led city Government didn’t believe in paying with tax dollars for maintenance on a bridge that was already built.
Yeah, it’s all really tragic. I remember reading somewhere that in one US city the town hall sold the control of all parking meters to a private company. Now the company raises prices constantly and the city can’t do anything that would put their profits in danger like closing a road for public event.