$42 billion for broadband and no customers

The Free Press reports:

Four years ago, the Biden administration promised 25 million people in rural America, like Beining, that they would get reliable access to the internet. But so far, the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program has yet to hook up a single customer.

Amazing. And remember we got over a million homes on fibre for under $1 billion!

In addition, states had to prove that they promoted participation from minority-owned businesses, women-owned businesses, and “other socially or economically disadvantaged individual-owned businesses.” They also had to create a Five-Year Action Plan that required collaborating with unions and “underrepresented communities,” including prisoners, LGBTQI+ individuals, women, and people of color.

Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, told The Free Press that “woke leftist policies” woven into BEAD’s eligibility requirements contributed to the holdup.

This would explain the lack of action. It is similar to the WCC requirement that street cleaning companies have policies about supplier diversity.

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