Obama Goes for Massive Infrastructure Spending

This is not a surprise. It's a good way to prime the pump, and the needs in terms of deferred maintenance on roads, bridges, water supplies, etc. are very real.

One thing that does concern me is that some of this infrastructure spending is on broadband (good), but they are (at least according to what I heard on Marketplace Money Sunday) planning to use incentives to private firms.

While Obama is correct in saying that it's unconscionable for the US to be number 15 in broadband penetration, the idea that the private sector would save this is absurd and misguided.

This was tried in the 1990s, with the incumbent telcos getting over $100 billion in incentives, but they spent the money that they got on cementing their position as incumbents, rather than on improving the communications infrastructure.

This is not surprising. Monopoly and near-monopoly generate the best profits, which is the objective in a capitalist system.

I do believe in competition in broadband, from the curb to the home phone/TV/PC, where the incumbent advantages are small, but in the last mile from the "central office" to the curb, having a private entity in running the business is an epic fail, and it is why the US lags behind state owned Telcos in both performance and price in places like Korea and Japan.