Posted on 01/28/2009 1:02:41 PM PST by dware
WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - An effort to delay the Feb. 17 deadline for a nationwide switch to digital television failed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday after Republicans blocked the move.
The legislation is backed by President Barack Obama and already passed the U.S. Senate. However, it failed to gain the required two-thirds support in the House under special rules adopted for the vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
BLAMING OBAMA
The vote went largely along party lines, with Republicans blocking the effort. In a statement to House speaker Nancy Pelosi, top Republicans said now is a time to negotiate.
Most Republicans believe boosting the funding of the government coupon program will alleviate most of the problems and that a delay will create more confusion.
Joe Barton, the most senior Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, with jurisdiction over the issue, blamed the Administration of President Barack Obama for throttling a bipartisan effort to fix the problems.
OK, so I didn't like this part. When will the GOP quit spending like the Dims?
I gotta go find the rollcall...
The republican’s are just thinking, we’ll make all those old people listen to talk radio.
For the president to make this a huge problem...he’s saying that TV is a national right...and it simply isn’t. We can all survive without TV or radio or internet.
Someone please explain to me at what point television became a right. Why in the world are we spending money on $40 coupons for converter boxes? We as a nation have gone totally off the deep end. Wonder how many people who need this government handout have cell phones, microwaves, a home, multiple televisions all being paid for by those of us who work? I’m disgusted!!!!
The government shouldn’t be involved in this in the first place.
I personally think he wants to bambozzle these older and poor people before they have a period of disconnect from their boxes. I think he’s probably got something up his sleeve where he’s going to need their support. I don’t trust the man a bit.
> We can all survive without TV or radio or internet.
Reminds me of that South Park episode when there was no internet. Nice to see the GOP find their pair once in awhile..
Ha!
Similar thread - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2173671/posts
has the Ass. Press blaiming House Republicans.
Now this one by hemi-Reuters also blames the Repubs.
So... Score one for Republicans today.
I guess they want Obama to fail also (At least on this digital TV nonsense)
TV is a luxury item. Like any other technology, sometimes it becomes obsolete and you either pay for an upgrade or you don't use it anymore. There should be no entitlement beyond basic - BASIC - food and shelter.
At what point did the MSM broadcasters get a right to a massive federal giveaway of additional bandwidth?
Are there really people out there, who aren’t buying a box because they lack a coupon?
I bought my boxes without the coupon, because it seemed like a pain in the rear. The boxes cost around $55 each. I can buy a DVD player for $25 at Wal-Mart.
Why would the DTV tuner cost so much?....government subsidies always cause prices to go up. If there weren’t any coupons, I probably would have cut my costs in half.
Nah. You’re not missing a thing.
From the article.... The legislation is backed by President Barack Obama...
So you see if Obama is for it - then the brownshirts in the MSM are in lockstep also.
And anything good that Repubs do... The media will hate on them for it.
Republican vote to deny DTV converter box coupons. Women and minorities hardest hit.
So PATHETIC!
BINGO!
1. ANYTHING the GOP does from here on out will bite them in the ass.
2. The GOP HAS NO POLITICAL CAPITAL at this point.
3. It's time for the GOP to show it's relevance. In order to do so, it is crucial to oppose EVERYTHING & ANYTHING that comes from the leftist extremist socialists.
I think the logic goes something like, "it's supposed to be free TV." Well, your TV wasn't free, and $40 isn't much to pay (and unfortunately has put a price floor on ATSC tuners which probably could be cheaper now).
All that said, "we" aren't spending money on the coupon program, Verizon and AT&T did when they bid billions of dollars on the spectrum freed up by the change. Expect much better cell phone coverage with free data services included about 18 months after the changeover.
I think opposing everything and anything shows irrelevance. It’s immature, much like a two year old who only can say no. If the GOP is to ever have a hope of winning majorities they have to demonstrate that they are adults and can be trusted to be in charge. Adults pick their battles with care, they act on principle not as fans at a football game booing the refs..
In theory, you are absolutely correct. But the GOP has rolled over and played dead since 2000, and the party will not take it much longer. Or should I say its membership won't take it much longer. It's time for the GOP "leadership" in Washington to show they got some balls.
There needs to be a political calculation in these feel good votes that always has the eye on the ball..eg winning elections.
The funniest thing about that is if you get your $40 converter box, then you most likely can receive a good portion of those HD channels on the lowest-tier non-digital cable subscription. When I signed up for limited basic on Comcast, I could get all the OTA digital and a good chunk of cable digital channels including a slew of music stations on my ATSC/QAM tuner. (I believe all digital over the air tuners can decode cable QAM signals too).
The boxes are 50 bucks anyway. I was okay with a coupon thing before, but not now. If you don’t have your coupon, tough.
Buy it full price.
I get cable so it doesn’t effect me. However, it is kind of neat. My parents don’t have cable and use the old roof antenna. They already have their box and every station already is broadcasting digitally. The picture is great on every channel. In fact, they have many more channels than normal due to the ease with which that can happen using the digital spectrum. Their local PBS station has something like 3 digital channels.
Pretty neat.
People can deal without tv.
TV or radio maybe, but how the Hell are we supposed to FReep without the Internet? Morse code?
I hope you aren’t suggesting we stay analog. The United States is so far behind technologically on things like this it isn’t even funny.
Ridiculous.
In other words, we should have gone digital 10 years ago at the latest....
I hope you aren’t suggesting that the only way to have digital was to give the broadcasters billions of dollars worth of free bandwidth.
You need to spend some time reading the Bill of Rights...
A well regulated group of couch potatos, being necessary to the security of paying advertisers, the right of the people to obtain government DTV conversion rebates, shall not be infringed
OK, so I went to public school. We didn’t study the Bill of Rights very much. We were allowed to play dodge ball though.
Yes, starting with city councils, county commissions and school boards. The federal level is a lost cause at this point. Once we gain majorities locally, then we can start thinking state legislatures. Later on, the federal level. At present, the GOP on the federal level is impotent (as evidenced with tonight's House vote on the stimulus bill). In order to bring it back, we have to get a strong, ground level, grassroots effort moving, and start locally.
I wonder how many people lost TV transmission today?
survive w/o internet?! speak for yourself ;)
“For the president to make this a huge problem...he’s saying that TV is a national right...and it simply isn’t. We can all survive without TV or radio or internet.
“
The right to free, government provided, digital television converters is listed in our Bill of Rights.
Considering the federal treasury is getting about $20 billion in revenue from auctioning off the spectrum freed up from TV broadcasting, it's not unreasonable to increase funding for the coupons by a few hundred million dollars.
Don’t these converter boxes need to plugged in. More energy being wasted. Oh boy, there goes the planet. LOL!!! I bet there alot of people buying them and don’t even need them. I know a lady at work who said she got the coupons for them. She said she will probably get one. She has Cox and said she might switch to Directv. LOL!!! To the best of my recollection, TV’s made from 2006 on, are all digital. Can anyone verify that? My newest TV was purchased in Dec of 2006, not long after that my sattelite receiver went out. I had put on the antenna, of course there was fuzziness. Some time last year I tried out the antenna again and all the channels were clear, without their converter box. Most of the time they never seem to mention that when they are talking about the transition. $$$
Good question. The government is forcing broadcasters to give up the analog band. Ergo, there should be no $40 cap on the compensation owed to people who are adversely affected by this action.
More fundamentally, the government is raking in $20 billion by taking an action that has the effect of disabling the TV sets some people bought and paid for. (The did not spontaneously "become obsolete" -- they can still pick up an analog TV signal fine, if the government allowed broadcasters to send such signals.) Compensating people whose property is adversely affected by one's actions is part of the cost of doing business.
—Good question. The government is forcing broadcasters to give up the analog band. Ergo, there should be no $40 cap on the compensation owed to people who are adversely affected by this action. —
Nail, meet hammer. Great tagline by the way.
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