My point is that there is a difference. The local government is a nice centralized place where the ISP can go to lobby for subsidies. Of course, it's the tax payers' money, but individual tax payers do not directly decide where it goes. Some shady person who years ago went door to door campaigning and has been running unopposed is now in charge of who gets the subsidies.
Trust me, I understand how taxes work. I also have seen how, despite great opposition from the people, the bill that basically guarantees Time Warner Cable a monopoly in NC was passes through all the hoops and not a single politician stepped up and said "WTF is this?"
It does not matter very much, so far as I see it. My point is this: you pay your taxes. The money all goes into one large fund. It is then divided accirding to the planned budget. If I wanted a cut of that money I would look for the easiest spot to do that: where the budget is defined. Here the issue is that, while you, as a tax payer and a citizen, have a direct say in who decides on the budget (you elect them), you have no direct control over how the money is distributed. If you do not like what is happening, all you can do is vote for the other guy /gal at the next election. However, your local ISP can affect the budget. They can, for example, say that it is too expensive to serve some areas and that without government subsidies, they will not do it. That is how they get the subsidies. At least in some cases this also goes together with making generous contributions to the campaign fund of the politician who helped push through the bill that allowed the subsidy.
So my point is that the individuals making the decision to give an ISP money, at least theoretically do not always represent your interests. This is clearly what happened with TWC in North Carolina, as mentioned in the post I linked.
Trust me, I understand how taxes work. I also have seen how, despite great opposition from the people, the bill that basically guarantees Time Warner Cable a monopoly in NC was passes through all the hoops and not a single politician stepped up and said "WTF is this?"