"What will I do if I can't watch this excitement from the comfort of my own home?" (Photo by Richard Drew/AP)

I just read that Obama — or, more accurately, his transition helper John Podesta — wants the digital TV conversion pushed back from its Feb. 17 start date.

This seems dumb to me for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that most every station has already made the transition… here in southcentral Kentucky (hardly the most advanced area of the nation), two of the three stations transmitting have already stopped sending out analog signals. But there’s a deeper reason that I think this “delay the transition” talk is counterproductive.

Podesta says:

The program to provide consumers with a coupon to defray the cost of the digital-to-analog converter necessary to analog TV’s to continue to work has run out of funds … As of today, over 1 million coupon requests sit on the wait list, unable to be fulfilled by the Department of Commerce. By early February, projections suggest that number could climb to over 5 million… With coupons insufficient, and the most vulnerable Americans exposed, I urge you to consider a change to the legislatively mandated analog change. [bold mine–R]

The most vulnerable Americans? Is this what we’ve come to, that one of our primary concerns in a faltering economy is to make sure “vulnerable” Americans have access to Dr. Phil and Grey’s Anatomy?

That our government — even in the so-called “conservative” phase when this transition idea was mandated in 2005 — thinks it needs to subsidize people’s ability to get a TV signal is absurd in decent economic times; I, for one, can think of a lot better ways for Uncle Sam to spend his cash than helping people buy converters for their extremely old TV sets.

Think about what this means, in practical terms: Taxpayers are being put into further debt so they can keep their access to network television. Network television that, while supposedly “public,” is almost one-third advertisement. Advertisement for Snuggies and foreign cars and newfangled mops and a million other things the viewer a.) doesn’t need and b.) CAN’T AFFORD. Oh, and there are ads, too, for credit cards and reverse mortgages and “low” financing — it’s a near-constant refrain to the already poorer-than-before taxpayer (whose tax money is itself simply paying off the interest on a huge national debt) to go spend money he doesn’t have on things he doesn’t need. He is not just tempted, he is literally seduced by these ads… don’t lie, you are constantly coming up with reasons the purchase of that on-sale flat panel TV makes more sense than ever.

If one wants to explore some of the factors behind our nation’s debt and a failing economy spurred by the housing bubble, she only needs to look at the way our leaders and representatives intend to help the “vulnerable” among us.