IP: If DTV's Busted, So Is the Budget

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Title: approve:ggfarber  If DTV's Busted, So Is the Budget

------ Forwarded Message
From: Mike Liebhold <mnl@well.com>
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2002 19:12:42 -0700
To: Dave <dave@farber.net>

This is pretty amusing -- After over a decade, the broadcasters are
still hoarding DTV spectrum:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,54332,00.html

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var lnb_S=2; var lnb_I="VID=5102=1_PR=49_APPID=0";

 
If DTV's Busted, So Is the Budget

By Brad King <mailto:brad_king@wired.com?subject=If DTV's Busted, So Is the Budget>

2:00 a.m.  Aug. 6, 2002 PDT
Faced with a potential budget-busting loss of $18 billion, Rep. Billy Tauzin (D-Louisiana) has ordered the warring parties responsible for digital television to just get along.

But with numerous issues still unresolved, it's looking unlikely that the infrastructure will be in place when the switch date comes in 2006. That's unacceptable for Congress, which engineered a balanced budget amendment five years ago to reflect billions in anticipated revenue from spectrum auctions for DTV.


  

Tauzin <http://www.house.gov/tauzin/welcome-english.htm> , frustrated by the lack of consensus on technological issues, said he would craft an omnibus bill that would legislate solutions. He also directed the Federal Communications Commission <http://www.fcc.gov>  to begin sorting out some of these issues.

The reason for Tauzin's interest: If broadcasters fail to turn on their digital signals in 2006, legislators will see a massive budgetary shortfall. When they passed the Balanced Budget Act in 1997, they counted on the proceeds from the future sale of digital spectrum.

That kind of budgeting is standard practice in Congress; however, representatives have started questioning it.

"Congress has permitted spectrum auctions, intended as an efficient and objective means to licensing spectrum, to become a mere tool for raising revenue," said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) during a communications subcommittee meeting in June. The digital television transition, he said, was made because of budgetary needs, not technological needs.

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