McCain criticizes Reid's debt-ceiling plan for including spectrum auction payments

A proposed auction of television spectrum has now become tangled up in the onerous ongoing debate over raising the debt ceiling, Broadcasting & Cable reports. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took to the Senate floor Wednesday (July 27) to criticize the debt-ceiling plan of Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for including payments to broadcasters as part of incentive auctions that could run into billions of dollars. "Television broadcasters got the spectrum for free," he said. "Now we're supposed to ask the taxpayers to give them a billion dollars to give back spectrum that they owe?" Although he corrected that word to own, "his original seemed to better capture the tenor of his criticisms," B&C notes.