To the editor:

The photo shown with George Will’s columns always pictures him with a wide clear view of the world. But his writing indicates that much of the time he is surely wearing blinders! As he discourses on Congress legislating subsidies to help pay for converter boxes to make analog TV sets compatible with digital transmission (Dec. 8), he switches to blinders midway.

This $3 billion boondoggle he blames on Congress responding to citizens’ demand for more entitlements. “No Couch Potato Left Behind,” he calls it. That’s precisely where he slipped on his blinders.

Congress very likely is responding to demands for this subsidy, though not from “couch potatoes.” Will mentions, for “the vast majority of Americans April 2009 (switch to 100 percent digital transmission) will mean absolutely nothing.” So who’s asking for this giveaway?

Probably big business, specifically TV executives and their advertisers. Media advertising revenues will drop, if they can no longer include that 15 percent of television households currently without access to digital TV.

Many Americans need and deserve assistance from their fellow citizens. Health care comes to mind. Will notes the Founding Fathers were for individualism and self-reliance. They also were concerned about promoting the general welfare.

Meanwhile, let media corporations offer subsidies for converter boxes to viewers who might otherwise miss their digital advertising.

Mark Larson,

Lawrence