Government is nothing if not consistent.
It is, for example, consistently awful. At everything our elected officials and unelected bureaucrats try to have it do.
On November 15, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan, woefully misnamed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Contained within that monstrosity – was $42.25 billion for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program.
And even before that, President Joe Biden was on the broadband equity case. And by that I mean – he put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge:
“May 5, 2021: Vice President Harris Takes on the Effort for Internet Equity:
“’Vice President Harris is now in charge of a push to get better internet across the U.S. Getting this right could have big stakes for her political future.’”
Harris’ political future – is now. She’s running for a promotion. So – how’s she doing with our $42.45 billion?
Three months ago, we took a look:
“July 24, 2024: ‘Hundreds of broadband infrastructure builders are now sounding the alarm, writing that the $42 billion plan to expand Internet has been wired to fail.
“’President Biden put VP Harris in charge of this effort back in 2021 and 982 days later (and counting) not 1 person has been connected.’”
That’s an exceedingly awful result. But that was three months ago. Perhaps government has subsequently cleaned up its act – and started delivering with our many BEAD billions.
I kid. I’m a kidder. This is government – the king of consistency.
As of September 18, 2024 – the BEAD program had still connected zero people.
Oh: And in November 2021, there were 25 different federal programs with “broadband as a main purpose.” Because government is also consistent – in its wasteful redundancies.
Let us review some things the bipartisan bureaucrats – who voted to waste our money on yet another broadband-by-government program – won’t tell you.
How’s this for ridiculous: Government only counts a hardline, wired connection – as an Internet connection.
Leave it to government to rigidly insist the most expensive, inflexible and outdated way to connect – is the only way to connect.
Government does this (in part) to “justify” continuing to waste tens of billions per annum on 25+ different broadband programs.
By claiming many tens of millions of people who are actually connected – are “unconnected.”
Does no one in government have a cell phone? Have they never heard of satellite Internet?
Let us examine the connectivity of these alternate connections, shall we?
Video is currently the most bandwidth-intensive thing most people do on the Web.
And you’ve been seamlessly streaming video on your cellular smart phone – for about a decade now.
But government doesn’t count a cellular connection – as a connection.
Elon Musk used his Starlink satellite Internet to connect a remote Amazon jungle tribe. The video streamed so seamlessly – the tribe became addicted to porn.
But government doesn’t count a satellite connection – as a connection.
Non-wired connections are so good? They allowed then-President Barack Obama to praise himself for having connected 98% of Americans – in 2015.
Because back then, Obama was rightly counting all connections…:
“President Obama announced that we’ve reached our major broadband connectivity goal – 98 percent of Americans nationwide are now connected to high-speed wireless Internet, surpassing any point in history.
“President Obama…set the ambitious goal of providing 4G mobile broadband to at least 98 percent of Americans.”
If cellular was a “high-speed wireless Internet” connection a decade ago? It is certainly an even better connection now – after a decade of MASSIVE speed and traffic-control improvements.
The average US cellular speed in 2016 – was 11.14 Mbps. In 2023 – it was 27.06 Mbps. Or more than double – from when Obama was heralding it as a high-speed connection.
And satellite Internet was barely a thing in 2015. Now – it’s a real-deal alternative. Ask Musk – or the Amazon tribe he hooked up.
But government – post-Obama – decided to stop counting either cellular or satellite as a connection.
Because government wanted to continue wasting hundreds of billions of dollars – on dozens of programs we haven’t needed in at least a decade.
And, in fact, we actually didn’t need any of them at all – ever.
Because all of the aforementioned connection successes?
Were delivered by the private sector.
Despite – not because of – the government.
Because, as we know, government is consistently awful.
Editor’s Note: This also appeared in Townhall.