Term-limited and unable to run for a third term, president Barack Obama may be going out of office swinging. Pundits are still actively debating Obama’s recent proposal for free community college for all, which has earned the praise and ire of countless people on both sides of the political aisle. Not content to rest on his laurels, Obama is again proposing big changes…this time in terms of high-speed Internet access. According to The Verge, Obama will call for increased access to broadband Internet and low costs in his upcoming State of the Union address.
This takes Obama’s support of net neutrality a step further. By advocating low-cost broadband Internet for everyone, Obama has taken another step down the path toward making Internet access a public good, as well he should. Hopefully, within 20 years both health care and Internet access will be freely available to all U.S. citizens, ensuring that nobody is blocked from two of the most necessary things to becoming productive citizens.
I have long supported the idea that Internet access, by now important for everything from education to employment to government assistance, should be a public good. It appears that Obama’s increasingly bold strides down the path toward greater access to health care, higher education, and Internet access will eventually culminate in these goods and services being supplied by the government to guarantee equitable access.
Once the idea is out there, it cannot be stopped, only delayed. While Obama and his supporters may not dare to suggest that they want these goods and services to be provided by the government, out of fear of reactionary politics, such a scenario is the inevitable result. It occurred with K-12 education, with considerable success. It has largely occurred with higher education, also with considerable success. Many cities now provide free or reduced-cost public transportation, again with considerable success.
It makes no sense to delay the inevitable. Rather, policymakers should work to make the eventuality occur most equitably and efficiently. Everyone should be able to access the Internet at a speed necessary to successfully receive education, seek employment, engage in e-commerce, and apply for government services and assistance. How can we make it happen?
