You can always count on one thing in Washington, D.C. - when the government starts carpet bombing the landscape with dollar bills, interest groups will ask to be bombed. So the Telecommunications Industry Association (News - Alert) has written the Congress urging that incentives for broadband deployment be made part of any future economic stimulus bill.

 

“Including broadband incentives in a stimulus package would further a number of important goals and priorities of the Congress and provide substantial benefits to all Americans,” says TIA President Grant Seiffert in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

 

Seiffert argues that “just a seven percentage point increase in broadband adoption could result in $134 billion per year in total direct economic impact” to the United States, including $662 million saved per year in healthcare costs.

 

Seiffert also argued that broadband could reduce oil consumption up to 11 percent over a 10-year period, driven by $6.4 billion in miles not driven, for example.

 

Seiffert even argues that broadband will promote job growth and raise property values. All of that plausibly is true in some sense. And asking for government support is one of the things any trade association, union or professional association is supposed to do.

 

To be sure, for every legitimate public purpose there is a corresponding private interest. Still, there is something more than a bit unsettling about the number of interest groups that claim carpet bombing them with money is the best way to advance public policy.