Tag Archives: FCC Commissioner

If She Were Rated On Actual Performance…

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The media loves Kamala Harris. The Internet is trying to erase her role as Border Czar, her involvement in the Afghanistan withdrawal, and any other failed policy of the Biden administration. Unfortunately for Kamala Harris, there always seems to be one more administration failure that she was involved in.

On Friday, Breitbart posted the following:

Vice President Kamala Harris, who was tapped to lead the administration’s rural broadband expansion, failed to connect one person with high-speed internet despite having $42.5 billion from the so-called infrastructure bill.

During his 2021 State of the Union address, President Joe Biden tapped Vice President Harris to lead the effort “because I know it will get done.”

Now, in 2024, it appears that the Biden-Harris admin has made little progress getting Americans connected to high-speed internet.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commission Brendan Carr noted in June that Biden and Harris did not connect one American despite having access to $42.5 billion in funding from the so-called infrastructure bill, or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Carr noted on Wednesday, “President Biden put VP Harris in charge of this effort back in 2021 and days later not 1 person has been connected.”

The article concludes:

Carr in June contended that much of the Biden administration’s failure to expand broadband is to its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals.

“The Biden Administration is barreling towards a broadband blunder. Congress has appropriated enough money to end the digital divide, but the Biden Administration is squandering the moment by putting partisan political goals above smart policy,” the FCC commissioner explained. “It is doing so through rate regulation, through union, technology, and DEI preferences, and through a thumb on the scale for government run networks. All of this threatens to leave rural communities behind.”

One wonders exactly how the $42.5 billion was spent. How much of it went to companies that coincidentally made huge campaign donations to Democrats?

Where Are The High-Speed Internet Connections?

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On Saturday, Breitbart posted an article about one of the provisions in the bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. The Bill included $42.45 billion from Congress to deploy high-speed Internet to millions of American.

The article reports:

“In 2021, the Biden Administration got $42.45 billion from Congress to deploy high-speed Internet to millions of Americans. Years later, it has not connected even 1 person with those funds. In fact, it now says that no construction projects will even start until 2025 at earliest,” the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner wrote.

“Meanwhile, the Biden Admin has been layering a partisan political agenda on top of this $42.45B program – a liberal wish list that has nothing to do with connecting Americans. Climate change mandates, tech biases, DEI requirements, favoring government-run networks + more,” he continued.

Carr is specifically slamming the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, which allocated $42.45 billion to support broadband infrastructure and adoption.

The program was established by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), otherwise known as the so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill. The bill had no conservative victories and had many leftist carveouts, as Breitbart News detailed.

The article concludes:

Carr continued, saying that the BEAD program fails to close the “digital divide,” or the gap between with those with high-speed internet and those without.

“The Biden Administration is barreling towards a broadband blunder. Congress has appropriated enough money to end the digital divide, but the Biden Administration is squandering the moment by putting partisan political goals above smart policy,” the FCC commissioner explained. “It is doing so through rate regulation, through union, technology, and DEI preferences, and through a thumb on the scale for government run networks. All of this threatens to leave rural communities behind.”

You would think that at some point the Republicans in Congress would learn that the bills that the Democrats want bi-partisan support on are never what they appear to be. This was another spending boondoggle that the Republicans stupidly endorsed. We need new Republicans who won’t be fooled (or bribed) by the Democrats.

More Money Being Taken From Those Who Earned It And Given To Those Who Did Not

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NBC News is reporting today the the Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to expand a telephone subsidy for low-income Americans to include Internet access. Originally Republicans had reached a deal with one of the Democratic members of the Commission to cap the cost of the program, but evidently she changed her vote due to pressure from other Democrats.

The article reports:

Republicans have pushed for a budget cap for the $1.5 billion annual program, called Lifeline, which has helped lower-income Americans get access to telecommunications technologies since 1985. There is currently no cap.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, a Republican, said Democratic Commissioner Mignon Clyburn had signed onto a deal with Republicans earlier in the day after intensive negotiations, only to change her decision.

Pai’s aide, Matthew Berry, said Wheeler had “bullied” fellow Democrat Clyburn into withdrawing from a “moderate, bipartisan deal” that would also have set a minimum standard on broadband speeds.

I do not have a problem with providing cell phones to low-income people (within reason), although that is not the government’s job. We need to remember that the government has no money of its own–the only money the government has it takes from working Americans. If low-income people do not have land lines, they need cell phones for emergencies. However, I need someone to explain to me exactly when internet access became a right. Most Americans pay for internet access, and for many, that payment represents a significant part of their budget. Why are some Americans not only forced to pay for their own internet but also forced to subsidize someone else’s internet? It is also telling that the Democrats on the FCC were unwilling to put a budget cap on the program. That is the kind of thinking that creates the massive federal debt that has become part of America.