TV Pork

Congress has voted to subsidize your next TV purchase. George Will had a great column on it yesterday. By 2009, all broadcasters are required to be broadcasting digital signals, which will also require people to have digital TV sets or converter boxes to receive the signal. There is a big picture reason for this. There is only a finite amount of radio bandwidth, and by requiring broadcast TV networks to move from analog signals to digital signals, a certain amount of that bandwidth gets freed up for other uses. That is good for all of us, as we will see new and/or improved technologies on the market once some of this bandwidth gets freed up. Subsidizing people to replace their analog TV sets with new digital ones is idiotic, though. First of all, there are very, very few people who are getting their signal via broadcast signals now days. And for those who are, there is plenty of time for them to figure out how they are going to purchase a converter or a new television set. This subsidy, while not yet reconciled between the two houses of Congress, was quitely approved in both, and it is yet another reason to be disappointed with the Republicans we currently have in Washington. Fiscal conservatism? Not a chance. The current lack of conservatism amongst Congressional Republicans is part of the reason I'm leaning against term limits. The Republican Revolution of 1994 swept into power some very good Conservatives. Several of them were so principaled that they held themselves to term limits even though they weren't required too, and that's unfortunate because we could use everygood conservative we could get in Washington right now.