Harris Aborts Broadband For All Fiasco

Why has the Harris Broadband Rollout been a fiasco? Here’s why: “Three years after the $42.5 billion subsidy passed, not a single project is underway.”

As the WSJ editorial board opined: “Government makes many promises, the Biden Administration more than most. Results are another story.” Case in point, they the editors argue, is the “internet for all” plan that President Biden gave to VP Kamala Harris to shepherd to completion. Drum roll. Concluded the WSJ: “Fiasco is the word for it.” That’s because the 2021 infrastructure law included $42.5 billion for states to expand broadband to “unserved,” mostly rural, communities. Three years later, ground hasn’t broken on any proposal, anywhere. The Administration recently conceded construction won’t start until next year at the earliest, “meaning many projects won’t be up and running until the end of the decade.” If ever.

Part of the problem, it turns out, is the bureaucracy’s own stifling regulations. Noted the editors, “States must submit plans to the Commerce Dept. about how they’ll use the funds and their bidding process for providers.” But Commerce has piled on mandates “that are nowhere in the law and has rejected state plans that don’t advance progressive goals,” whatever that happens to be at a given point in time. Even rates are indirectly being forced on bidders to make them “affordable,” but the demands are so low providers are being discouraged from participating at all. There’s other ways the bureaucracy is shooting itself in the broadband. Lack of leadership is another problem. Have you heard presidential candidate Kamala Harris mention this was another one of her babies that are on the verge of being aborted?

Davd Soul