HDTV

I don't as a rule expect much from my government but just recently I decided that what I'd like — in fact what I deserve — is a high-definition TV set.

You know the kind I mean. The ones with a picture so eerily crystalline that without even squinting you can tell when the evening news anchorman will toss out his current razor.

I need to emphasize right off that I didn't invent this HDTV handout plan. I covet 1080-dots-per-inch resolution as much as the next guy, but I'm not greedy.

It was, rather, the government's idea to get involved in determining the clarity of my TV screen. It seems to me that the quality of my home entertainment system is too much of a burden for the government to take on, what with wars to fight and taxes to collect, but I suppose the bureaucrats know what they're up to. They didn't solicit my opinion, in any case.

What got me to thinking about HDTVs is another government scheme. A few years ago Congress compelled broadcasters to switch from analog signals, that charmingly anachronistic technology that has served viewers since "Leave it to Beaver" was in first runs, to digital. The switch is scheduled to take place by Feb. 17, 2009.

This change matters not a whit if your TV set has a digital receiver. Chances are, though, it doesn't. Which means the analog-for-digital swap is sort of like Congress mandating that service stations start pumping diesel only, even though 97 percent of our rigs run on gasoline. I would not be surprised if Congress did this.

Now as it happens, the advent of digital broadcasts won't scramble my TV-watching schedule, and probably not yours, either. Even though all of my sets are embarrassingly outdated analog models, I'm shielded from the digital age because I have cable. The digital switch won't foul up analog TVs connected to satellite dishes or to Internet broadcasts, either.

The viewers who ought to worry are those who own analog TVs and who receive signals not by coaxial cable or satellite dish, but by way of an old-fashioned antenna — the kind you mummify with aluminum foil so that Jay Leno doesn't appear to be doing his monologue in a blizzard. The Nielsen Co. estimates about 14.3 million homes — 13 percent of the country— are in that predicament.

Congress knows this, though. And Congress is not about to steal Oprah and the NFL from millions of its constituents.

That esteemed body's solution to this problem of its own making, as you probably have guessed, was to write a big check. Big by anyone's standards except Congress', at any rate.

Lawmakers set aside $1.5 billion to ensure no American misses so much as a single episode of a program in which people, preferably celebrities, either dance, sprint through mud bogs or sing badly. Most of that money will pay for $40 vouchers that people can redeem when they buy a device that converts digital TV signals to analog. Those devices, which should be available soon at major retailers, will cost from $50 to $70.

This voucher program exemplifies Congress' affinity for heaving your money about in a manner so haphazard that it would be amusing except that the dollars are real, and you earned them.

To claim your vouchers — two per household, that's an $80 value — all you have to do is ask. Congress doesn't care if your TVs are analog or digital, or whether you subscribe to cable or rely on the old rabbit ears. Simply put, Congress isn't interested in whether you actually need a digital converter. It just wants to get rid of a billion and a half bucks, quickly.

The program isn't an absolute free-for-all, though. The vouchers aren't cash — I can't take my two and trade them in for half a dozen cases of Old Milwaukee, for instance.

But I could presumably sell my vouchers at a discount — say 60 bucks for their pair — and then turn the hard cash into cold cans of Old Mil. So what if I'm a couple cases short. It's still free beer.

Except, of course, it's not free. Not if you pay taxes, anyway.

Which brings me back to my request, or demand. Never mind converter boxes, Congress. I've already got one of those. It came from the cable company. If I had to put another plastic box on top of the entertainment center I'd probably need to re-arrange picture frames and basically the whole thing would be quite a hassle. And I know Congress doesn't want to hassle me.

So what I suggest is that the government send me a voucher for an HDTV set. That way I'll be ready for the digital transition even if I decide to cancel my cable.

I'd even settle for $80, which Congress is going to give me anyway. As I said, I'm not greedy, and I don't expect Congress to buy the set outright.

They're expensive. My parents just bought a 42-incher and I'm figuring it'll put a real dent in the inheritance.

Which is apt to look pretty puny anyway once Congress has gouged off the estate taxes.

Jayson Jacoby is the editor of the Baker City Herald.