Here’s something to celebrate in the Missouri budget: The governor cut $24 million that would have subsidized broadband Internet in rural areas.
As state officials have noticed, living in a rural community is different from living in an urban environment. You don’t have all the traffic, noise, and light pollution you’d find in a big city. The flip side is that you don’t have your choice of restaurants just around the corner, or the same opportunities to access the Internet.
The state shouldn’t try to smooth out those differences and give rural residents the benefits of city life. It would be silly to open a state-funded Starbucks on every gravel road so that rural areas would have better access to coffee. Broadband subsidies are an equally bad idea.
