When We Look Back, This Will Be the Week it Ended

When I first heard about the BIP and BTOP programs, it was the first day I learned anything of substance about my client, a wireless company with a very bright future. The programs seemed tailor-made for them, ostensibly available to build broadband infrastructure in rural areas, the company's sweet spot.

We built a great team, and filed very impressive applications in both rounds. Great infrastructure in place. Proven track record. Matching funds. Shovel ready. Incredibly low cost per subscriber. Big projects covering over a million people. Tons of new jobs.

Like any cynical lawyer, I fretted over the need for the client to "up its public profile," i.e., to contribute to the campaigns of key politicians who could recommend our project, or perhaps even lean on folks within the administration. We did that. We got glowing recommendations from every politician within shouting distance.

But when I saw the list of awardees for Obama's speech I knew in my heart it was over. For all our hard work, for all our popularity with our local politicians (living on borrowed time though they are), and despite the compelling sense it would make to throw a few bucks our way, I knew what I think I always knew on one level or another: the fix is in against wireless.

I'm trying to develop a metaphor that captures the abject stupidity of what the administration has done here. One could say, for instance, that they've lit hundreds of millions of dollars on fire, but that actually would have been far less destructive. At least that would have, in some small part, fought the coming inflation of our currency by depleting the money supply. It's not the wasting of the money that has me so frustrated; I expect the government to waste money. It always does. It's inevitable. We all waste money. If we don't earn it, the problem tends to be even worse.

I'm frustrated because this money was not only used, but leveraged to distort markets and subsidize losers against winners. Subsidizing losers is worse than wasting money, because you waste time and discourage investment too. That costs you jobs and economic activity. Those are kind of important, aren't they?

OK, I've got my metaphor - something that truly captures it: This BIP and BTOP debacle is like invading Mexico. Not only is it a stupid idea with no upside, but the eminently forseeable consequences are entirely negative, though difficult to quantify because the public policy is so breathtakinly idiotic that there's really nothing to compare it to.

And this is the week we will all look back on as the end. When we knew that our own government was injecting $7 Billion worth of poison into our industry.