Last updated: January 8, 2009 - 1:36pm
[Commentary] Universal broadband? It's about future growth. Already, there is grumbling that Obama shouldn't try to do anything special with the stimulus; only old-fashioned programs need apply. The critics are grousing: How dare Obama try to use the crisis to transform the country! But this view is shortsighted. If the government has to spend a lot of money, why not use it for programs that can lift the economy now and also deliver a long-term payoff? Insisting on the same old approach to a stimulus means demanding only backward-looking investments that leave us with the same old problems once the spending spree ends. What we should fear most is not that Obama will get to keep some of his campaign pledges but that the stimulus will fall victim to classic logrolling. With so much cash on the table, the temptation will be enormous to lard the package with a slew of unproductive projects and all manner of narrow tax breaks for interests you probably never knew existed. In light of this danger, it would be far better if the new president started the debate with an imaginative proposal. Without a vision, the stimulus will perish in a pile of pork, and half a trillion dollars would be a terrible thing to waste.
Related Legislation
Related Sections
Related Topics
Special Topics
Similar links
- Building a New Communications System for America at the Grassroots Level
- It's time to broadband the economy
- The Right Broadband Stimulus Package
- Internet Service Speed Is Fast-Track Issue for New Administration
- Let's Spend on Broadband and the Power Grid
- Obama: Stimulus Plan can Add, Save up to 4 Million Jobs
- Defining 'broadband' key in stimulus plans
- Qwest seeks stimulus dollars for broadband
- Obama: Urgent action needed on an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan
- Stimulus Package Shouldn't Reward Bad Broadband Behavior
- Obama's Broadband Plan
- Group Asks Obama for $30B Tech Stimulus
- Keep the Sock Puppets Out of Your Stimulus
- Loan Guarantees: A Fourth Option for Spurring Broadband Deployment
- The Tech Solution To The Recession
Expect New Ways .
If the Obama administration begins to approach operating the government as they have the operation of their campaign, we can expect some innovation to appear fairly quickly. However, large ships take time to turn...don't expect miracles in shutting down the pork system overnight. Even so, I believe the Obama administration will find ways to fund the innovative ideas that are currently pouring into their Transition Team.
For example, rural communities are bleeding young people and their entire way of life is threatened. Our estimates, based on our direct experience and and the experiences of other NPO's like jag.org, is that guided K-16 technology training and placement programs could be cranking out new knowledge workers in rural areas for an estimated $5k-$7k a head. That's 500,000 new tech workers for an estimated $2.5b to $3.5b. We are currently proposing a small scale pilot of this model for rural communities.
What is also needed in addition to this is a massive investment in K-12 infrastructure. As I sit in rural school board meetings the overwhelming topics of discussion not about instructional issues but leaky roofs, cracked asphalt, buses falling apart, and lack of basics. Computers are far down the list in Maslow's Theory of Needs for many rural communities. Obama's announcement of a massive federal investment in K-12 infrastructure is long overdue.
The Deming Model needs to be resurrected in governmental program planning: Plan, DO, Study, ACT. We now have a President that has recently spent time as community organizer and thinks out-of-the-box.
I think we will see over time the funding of new approaches but that will take a process of time.
Paul Van Hoesen
Director, cTechnology.org