New Mexico Dems Pass An Affordable Broadband Law In 25 Days
from the teach-a-man-to-fish dept
In late 2024, Trump Republicans killed a very popular program that provided low-income Americans $30 off of their monthly broadband bill. The FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was, unsurprisingly, very popular, with more than 23 million Americans benefiting at its peak.
At the time, the GOP claimed they were simply looking to save money. The real reason the program was killed, of course, was that the ACP was popular with their constituents (the majority of ACP participants were in red states) and they didn’t want Dems to take credit during an election season.
A follow up report by The Brattle Group actually found that the $7-$8 billion annual taxpayer cost of the program generated between $28.9 and $29.5 billion in savings thanks to expanded access to affordable internet, remote work opportunities, online education tools, and remote telehealth services. The study also found the ACP generated $3.7 billion in increased annual earnings for students due to expanded remote education opportunities, and $2.1 to $4.3 billion in annual wage gains from expanded labor force participation.
In other words: the program more than paid for itself via downstream benefits (something DOGE dudebros and other Trump cultists can’t or won’t think deeply about).
With the feds completely apathetic to issues like affordability (despite a lot of empty rhetoric to the contrary), it’s falling to states to fill the void. Enter states like New Mexico, which just passed the first statewide replacement for the ACP. It provides every low-income New Mexico resident with cheaper broadband access. And from drafting to passage it took all of 25 days:
“Senate Bill 152 – first filed on January 26 of this year by State Sen. Michael Padilla, (D) Majority Whip – will update the state’s Rural Telecommunications Act and empower the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) to offer up to $30/month for qualified households to pay for Internet service.
The broadband bill, known as the Low-Income Telecommunications Assistance Program (LITAP), passed through the formal legislative session in high-speed fashion. It was first introduced at the end of January, passed by the House, and then the Senate by a 38-0 margin last Thursday (Feb. 12), making its way to the governor’s desk to be signed into law today. That’s a 25-day marathon from legislative start-to-finish.”
The program, which goes live this July, will cost around $10 million the first year, and then $42 million each year after that. It won’t be taxpayer funded; instead it’s funded by the state universal service fund (SRUSF) program (a small $1.50 fee on existing telecom services).
While myopic types will complain, I’ll repeat that the data we have on programs like this clearly show immense downstream cost savings thanks to lower income folks having access to employment, health care, education, and other remote opportunities. You’re paying a little up front to avoid paying a lot more down the road for a society that doesn’t function all that well.
That you might spend money up front to avoid significant costs (both financial and cultural) downstream is just a bridge too far for Elon Musk type hustlebros and assorted big thinkers, who think government should exist exclusively to slather our biggest telecom monopolies with unaccountable subsidies in exchange for taxpayer-funded broadband networks always mysteriously left half completed.
All of that said, I will note that you wouldn’t need programs like this (or you’d at least pay less for them) if you had more competition in the broadband sector. And you can create more competition in the U.S. broadband sector by taking aim at the giant regional monopolies that have bribed state and federal lawmakers into feckless compliance for forty-odd years, resulting in high prices, spotty access, and abysmal customer service.
Instead, we tend to pay money to these entrenched monopolies to temporarily lower broadband prices that wouldn’t be so high in the first place if we had lawmakers capable of standing up to monopoly power. That can often come in the form of embracing cooperatives, city-owned utilities, or municipal open access fiber projects in areas these giants have long refused to adequately serve.
An ideal, functioning government would probably shore up antitrust reform and crack down on telecom monopoly power, embolden community alternatives, and establish programs that benefit the poor to help society better manage downstream costs and harms. But America, clearly now too corrupt to function in the public interest, simply can’t see that far out beyond its campaign contribution skis.
Filed Under: ACP, affordability, antitrust, broadband, fiber, high speed internet, low income, monopoly, new mexico, telecom
Comments on “New Mexico Dems Pass An Affordable Broadband Law In 25 Days”
“Telecom services” being paid for by, mostly, taxpayers. Also, doing it this way is likely a bit more regressive that funding it from income taxes.
Re:
1) How is it more regressive
2) USFs already exist everywhere.
Re: Re:
I don’t know whether it is—maybe New Mexico will do a really good job—but income taxes generally have a lot of credits and deductions that may not be applicable to ad-hoc programs like this. Look up “welfare trap” for the general pattern.
I don’t see what point 2 has to do with anything.
Re: Re:
1) Flat fees are more regressive because it is a smaller percentage of income the wealthier you are but conversely a bigger percentage the poorer you are. An income tax would vary the weight of it by ability to pay. So it can be only 10 cents for someone making $30K/yr and maybe $100 for someone making $1M/yr. They are so very regressive that they make flat percentage taxes look downright progressive.
Big Telecom is going to fight like hell to get this initiative killed. Publicly-owned broadband is not conducive to wealth concentration.
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They will not. They’ll just call their Big Beautiful Buddy that will declare it’s illegal because it discriminates rich white males in New Mexico, and will threat to rename the state “New America” or will send the National Guard.
Doesn't add up....
First, the program will clearly be funded by taxpayers, the SRUSF is just a tax on users of telecom services.
Second, if the benefits are so clear and large then the subsidy ought to be offered to participants for a very limited time after which they will then rationally use part of those savings to pay the cost of their broadband in the future.
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Second, if the benefits are so clear and large then the subsidy ought to be offered to participants for a very limited time after which they will then rationally use part of those savings to pay the cost of their broadband in the future.
That’s ALREADY how it works, because that’s just how benefits work. If a low-income person uses their subsidized internet to find a high-paying job, they’ll stop being low-income and won’t qualify for the subsidy anymore.
Re: You can't add
ibid.
Sorry, that Brattle Group report is purely biased speculation, proving nothing.
Re: "purely biased speculation"
I don’t suppose you’d care to provide a source for your purely biased comment?
It’s amazing what happens when competent politicians represent their constituents’ interests. Passing beneficial legislation like this in 25 days is easy when the voters are smart enough to choose the right politicians.
Re: Not so fast
The federal subsidies this replaces expired in late 2024….so it took more like 400 days.
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Socialized broadband is bad, actually.
You seem to be a LITERAL COMMIE, but seriously, the government sucks at production. Should not own the means to production.
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You mean like the commie, trump?
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“Government is bad and inefficient by nature! Vote for me so that I can make the government worse and less efficient in order to prove it!”
Fuck off with your ‘starve the beast’ rhetoric. That’s what got us into this situation to begin with.
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Do you feel this way about all taxpayer-funded services, sir? Because if so, I’d like to talk with you about defunding the police.
The problem with this, is the average person is funding it. Are you taking lessons from Trump now? It is literally tax payer funder, and actually the worst kind of tax payer funded.
If it was just regular income taxes supporting it, then the poorest of the poor who don’t pay income taxes would be excluded from funding it. However this is funded by a tax on services, services that people need, which means everyone in the state is paying the tax and since it is a flat fee, as usual, the richest of the rich are impacted the least from it.
This is nothing more than a bandaid fix that spreads the cost around for some positive PR without doing anything to solve long term problems.
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Probably not, or not in net terms anyway. The people who are subsidized by the program would be effectively not paying it, and I expect “the poorest of the poor” will be included in that group.
The problem, as I see it, is that targeted programs like these often create “welfare gaps” by not matching each other. One might have an income low enough to not pay income tax, but not low enough income to get particular subsidies, and not have enough money to afford what they need. Or maybe they do qualify, but a $1000/year raise would have them lose $3000/year in net benefits for example.
Of course, the opposite can be true also: as a retired person, my income is low enough to avoid income taxes and to qualify for various “low income” benefits, but I’m nowhere near “poor”. When politicians and reporters use that word, they rarely actually mean it.
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Thanks, astroturfer (s?).