The Heavy Social Burden of Rural Dwellers

If you've read anything I've written before now, you probably know that I am not enthusiastic about the recently passed "Economic Stimulus Bill". Hot on the heals of a comparably sized bailout of the financial and auto industries, we've managed to wrack up a sizable debt in the final months of Bush's term and the first month's of Obama's.

I came across an article that's got me a bit ticked off. A certain Mr. Katz, former economist for the FCC, feels that the $7.2 billion in the stimulus package intended to bring broadband internet access to rural areas is being misspent. So far he and I are in agreement. But our reasons differ. . .

Here is a clip from the article Stimulus Stirs Debate Over Rural Broadband:

Former FCC economist Michael Katz didn't hesitate to bash rural life last week when he addressed an American Enterprise Institute panel discussion on the broadband elements of President Obama's economic stimulus bill.

"Other people don't like to say bad things about rural areas," Katz began. "So I will."

The stimulus package includes $7.2 billion to expand broadband Internet access into "underserved" and rural areas. Katz listed ways that the $7.2 billion could be put to better use, including an effort to combat infant deaths. But he also spoke of rural places as environmentally hostile, energy inefficient and even weak in innovation, simply because rural people are spread out across the landscape.

"The notion that we should be helping people who live in rural areas avoid the costs that they impose on society … is misguided," Katz went on, "from an efficiency point of view and an equity one."

Mr. Katz believes that rural people impose a burden on society. Hmm. First, let's point out that rural people did not descend on Washington demanding that the federal government provide them with broadband. We are not the financial executives from Wall Street, or the auto industry executives, demanding $700 billion dollars to take care of their problems for them. We are quietly trying to grow your food and would be thankful if Washington would just leave us alone while we do it. Rural people are not imposing a burden on society here, Washington is imposing its own will on rural people.

The "deserving" urbanites get a $700 billion bailout, and it is we rural folk who, by getting an unrequested infrastructure upgrade (at one one-hundredth the cost of Wall Street's bailout) are a burden on society. Wow. Some $3 trillion dollars has been committed for economic stimulus over the past year. We country dwellers are asking Washington to stop spending money and leave us alone, and we are the burden.

Well folks, I think it is our patriotic duty for all of us to move to the city. We don't want to impose unfair costs on society. There won't be anyone to grow food here anymore, but we can buy our melamine contaminated food from China.