Should web content be subsidized?

TierneyLab addresses an old question, and comes up with an old solution. Here is my response:

John, you have a good idea but you aren't thinking big enough.

Instead of having the government run a micropayment system to charge consumers, take all the money that the government wastes (the 40-50% of our federal budget that is siphoned off to the military) and establish it as a fund for artists and reporters. You can slice up the pie based on the number of hits each author/artist receives. In this way, society still has its free information, and the contributors have a guaranteed incentive to generate fresh content.