Sign up for our daily briefing
Make your busy days simpler with Axios AM/PM. Catch up on what's new and why it matters in just 5 minutes.
Stay on top of the latest market trends
Subscribe to Axios Markets for the latest market trends and economic insights. Sign up for free.
Sports news worthy of your time
Binge on the stats and stories that drive the sports world with Axios Sports. Sign up for free.
Tech news worthy of your time
Get our smart take on technology from the Valley and D.C. with Axios Login. Sign up for free.
Get the inside stories
Get an insider's guide to the new White House with Axios Sneak Peek. Sign up for free.
Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday
Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday
Want a daily digest of the top Denver news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Denver
Want a daily digest of the top Des Moines news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Des Moines
Want a daily digest of the top Twin Cities news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Twin Cities
Want a daily digest of the top Tampa Bay news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Tampa Bay
Want a daily digest of the top Charlotte news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Charlotte
The FCC is wrapping up the most complicated spectrum auction in history. Broadcast stations voluntarily sold airwaves. In return, they'll get $10 billion from wireless companies, who are buying those frequencies for more than $19 billion to provide more mobile broadband. And the Treasury will collect about $7 billion for deficit reduction.
This auction was the product of a multi-pronged government effort. The FCC conceived the plan in 2010. The Republican House wrote the legislation and a bipartisan Congress passed it in 2012. The FCC passed the necessary rules and executed to plan. Buyers and sellers made their bids. Everyone succeeded.
Now it's time to apply the same approach to other national challenges.
Healthcare: To lower costs, improve quality, and fairly pay doctors and hospitals everyone must participate in a market-based system of buying insurance. This is, like the spectrum auction, a two-sided, complex, and intricate process. On one side are human beings who do not know what care they will need or when, and on the other side are insurers and providers. Only government is in the position to figure out how to make a market where everyone buys and insurers sell to everyone.
Energy: The sun, wind, and hydro sources of power are cheaper than carbon fuels and do not depend on foreign-controlled resources. But between the point of generating electricity and its consumption in homes, offices, and factories is a complex distribution network. This too is a two-sided network: generation on one side, consumption on the other. Only government can organize this technically complex network so that it delivers the cheapest possible electricity to everyone, while opening the door to massive infrastructure investment.
Transportation: Hundreds of different regional, state and local government units own and control more than 90% of roads, bridges and tunnels. Since they all connect to each other, no business or government can throw money at transportation infrastructure without knowing each other's larger plan. States and local governments should collectively decide when to charge user fees and privatize when necessary. In other words, a government plan should help drive the process.
The goal in these areas is to lower costs and to expand quality of service — therefore increasing the standard of living for all Americans. This is what the FCC just did for wireless service, one of the most commonly used of all infrastructures in the economy today. The government has the potential to transform these other major building blocks of the economy.
Reed Hundt is CEO of the Coalition for Green Capital and former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.