$66 Billion for Ukraine, $14.2 Billion for Means-Tested "Affordable" Internet in America

They trotted out Joe Biden again today, this time to announce his Affordable Connectivity Program. That’s right. I’m sure Democrat cheerleaders will be crowing about this wonderful accomplishment in a futile attempt to get us to vote for them in November. Old Joe looks in fine campaign mode for a second:

Photo courtesy of AP

According to the Associated Press, Biden’s ballyhooed Build Back Better allocates $14.2 billion to this little deal, where a family or household living underneath 200% of the appallingly low federal poverty line will get—wait for it—$30 bucks a month off their internet, IF their service provider is participating in the program! Boy howdy!

Those of you who make more than $27,180 a year if you’re single or $55,500 if you’re in a family of four(source: American Council on Aging) won’t get squat, and liberals will tell you you’re a Bad Person if you object.

Meanwhile, Biden has called on Congress to pass not one, but two measures to send $33 billion each to Ukraine via American arms manufacturers and all sorts of other middle men. And that’s just the most recent example of this government lavishly spending money on war instead of on its own people.

Liberals will tell me to celebrate this. My New Dealish reformist response is that the government should either nationalize internet service and either provide it for free with advertising funding it or charter some tightly regulated monopoly to provide the service for no more than $10 a month per household, much like old Ma Bell used to do with telephone service.

My socialist response is to say that the internet is now a necessity, and therefore it should be provided either for free or for a very nominal amount by the government. There are many different ways this could be done, I’m sure, and any ideas anyone has would be fun to read and discuss.

Anyway, this is a brazen, in-your-face move by the oligarchs who control the United States government that tells Americans just how unimportant and insignificant our needs are to them: $66 billion for Ukraine, $14.2 billion for a program that will only bilk the poor $30 a month less for a service that should be free in the first place.

Are we living in a failed state yet? I think we are.