George Will finds time to play the Grinch...


December 8, 2005 -- "FEELING, evidently, flush with (other people's) cash, the Senate has concocted a novel way to spend $3 billion: Create a new entitlement. The Senate has passed — and so has the House, with differences — an entitlement to digital television.
If this filigree on the welfare state becomes law, everyone who owns old analog television sets — everyone from your Aunt Emma in her wee apartment to the millionaire in the neighborhood McMansion who has such sets in the maid's room and the guest house — will get subsidies to pay for making those sets capable of receiving digital signals."

George does an awful job of describing precisely WHAT a digital signal is, what a converter box DOES, and why, by 2009, such items need cost $50-60 dollars. But as of late his columns have not been to inform as much as complain, and therein lies the dishonesty of presenting half the information, or just enough of it to spark someone's ire. It isn't as if he's sitting at home in his pajamas or his name is Roger or Charles, no, Mr. Will has either not done his homework or deems a more rational explanation unecessary.

How we receive television signals will change in 2009. The thrust of his arguement is that the consumer should pay for such a transition all by his or herself without government funding and I happen to disagree. I watch so little television it hardly makes a difference, but there are people who employ it as their primary, some as their ONLY means of entertainment, and if the Republicans can cut taxes on a regular basis why not give aid to those for whom such a transition would be a financial burden. Ticks me off when wealthy people don't understand the price of gas or what it means to prop your feet up after a hard day at the mill and enjoy some peace of mind. And for someone who receives a generous salary from appearing on TV it's a tad disingenuous.