The President had a good day yesterday. He vetoed the Keystone Pipleline legislation, put the GOP in a corner on DHS funding, and got Republicans to cave on net neutrality.
The Keystone Pipeline has pretty much become joke so it's really not a big deal that he vetoed the bill. The issue is largely symbolic now yet I still question the value of the project. It will only create temporary jobs in a market that is really not doing very well right now. The DHS funding battle perplexes me as well. The president's immigration action is on hold pending court action so the GOP doesn't have to fight about it in Congress. They should be putting their energy into the court battle. Why put the people at DHS out of a job?
The net neutrality action is the big one out of this bunch. The internet should be regulated like a utility and the idea that the various providers should be allowed to slow down speeds or offer fast lanes for certain customers would eventually end up eroding consumer surplus. The internet is indeed a public good and should be governed as such.
4 comments:
The Keystone pipeline veto isn't really something to crow about. It should be built, but only under the right conditions.
We shouldn't be begging foreign oil companies to "create jobs in American." We should be making them pay us boatloads of money for putting American lives and lands at risk for their profit.
Republicans are conning the American people. The big oil companies aren't doing us any favors by drilling for oil and putting pipelines through our country. They're getting filthy rich off our lands. They might be risking their money on these ventures, but we're risking our lives by letting them route their oil trains and pipelines through our back yards.
They should be paying through the nose for the privilege. Not getting hundreds of billions of dollars in tax incentives and other kickbacks.
Can either of you tell us why the text of the legislation hasn't been released to the public?
Net neutrality is about less of a credible threat to this country than terrorism. At least you can point to an actual incident or two of terrorism. NN is all about "ohh, scary big corporations might not let me watch all the Netflix I want without paying for more bandwidth". Which needless to say has not happened, but no, let's wrap the internet in regulation because it is so CURRENTLY dysfunctional.
And by what definition is the internet a public good?
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