By Anastasiia @Adobe Stock
Taylor Swift Needs Help from Taxpayers
The Biden Administration, as politicians are wont to do, especially in an election year, has been making promises. In a fiasco brought by a modern classic progressive government, the Biden/Harris administration has spent a barrel of tax-payer money: “$42.5 billion for states to expand broadband to ‘unserved,’ mostly rural, communities,” reports the WSJ.
What is not being mentioned by the Biden/Harris administration is how political regulations require states to submit plans to the Commerce Department about how they’ll use the funds, including their bidding process for providers.
How the Sausage Is Made
Commerce, according to the WSJ editors, has piled on mandates that are nowhere in the law and rejected state plans that don’t advance progressive goals.
For example, the Biden administration is forcing providers to subsidize services for low-income customers. For example, Commerce required Virginia to revise its plan for bidders to offer a specified “affordable” price. This is “rate regulation.”
Brent Christensen of the Minnesota Telecom Alliance recently reported that none of his trade group’s 70 or so members plan to bid for federal grants because of the rate rules and other burdens. “To put those obligations on small rural providers is a hell of a roadblock,” he said. “Most of our members are small and can’t afford to offer a low-cost option.”
(The Biden/Harris Administration) has also stipulated hiring preferences for “underrepresented” groups, including “aging individuals,” prisoners, racial, religious and ethnic minorities, “Indigenous and Native American persons,” “LGBTQI+ persons,” and “persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.”
Imagine the ease of finding “underrepresented” hard hats, let’s say, in Montana. Among the groups not represented: “aging individuals,” prisoners, racial, religious, and ethnic minorities, “Indigenous and Native American persons,” “LGBTQI+ persons,” and “persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.”
Avoid/Mitigate Climate Risk
In another disruptive example, broadband, attempting to safeguard against natural disasters, already provides protection with redundant networks. The government’s required extraneous mandates will make building more expensive.
Last week, Cox Communications sued Rhode Island over the state’s plan to “build taxpayer-subsidized and duplicative high-speed broadband internet” in affluent areas of Rhode Island, like the “Breakers Mansion in Newport and affluent areas of Westerly,” where Taylor Swift owns a $17 million vacation home.”
Cox says there are better ways to spend taxpayer dollars. According to the Federal Communications Commission, 99.97% of U.S. households already have access to high-speed internet.
More Identity Politics/Union Favoritism
The WSJ accuses the broadband non-rollout of being a classic of modern progressive government. It authorizes money for a cause that private industry could do better, but then it botches the execution with identity politics and union favoritism.
Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris, Joe Biden’s V.P., is promising four more years of the same.
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