I hope Obama does better than this.
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What the hell does Obama have to do with it? Or Bush, either? The decision to go digital was made in the 90's. Might even have been during Clinton's watch. Maybe even proposed by Al Gore. I don't remember. Do you know why the decision was made to go digital? Because the FCC realized with the expansion of cell phones, wireless, etc they were going to need more bandwidth. So they saw that Japan was able to meet the rising bandwidth need by requiring digital communications wayyyyy back in the90's. So they hatched a scheme to increase bandwidth and make a little money on the side. They began selling frequencies. Who knows what they used the money for.
Guess it wasn't to provide boxes to people...
You only need a box if you receive TV signals on a non-HDTV with an antenna. If you have cable or satellite TV, no worries. Continue to march...