[apex3stoker]

Yes.

When Democratic Party controlled the federal government, they tried to. It is generally hard to do because it requires funding and passing laws. Another difficulty is that voters don’t reward Democratic Party for their efforts.

It is very easy for Republican Party to revert the changes. Moreover their donors reward the republican politicians for their efforts and their voters don’t punish them for their efforts.

[RRWagner]

+1 and more to this. Democrats are not good at all at letting voters know what they have done for them. In California that Republicans love to hate, we have clean air, free beaches, more protections from corporate predation, and so much more. Republicans are better at complaining and spreading fear, which sadly is a lower-energy and more effective method for getting votes.

[caseysoftware]

We got an overview of those "efforts" a few months back and it was both comical and enraging to hear how much money and time was wasted. And this was a law+process crafted by Democrats, signed by a Democrat President, and presided over by a Democrat Administration.. they had all the pieces in place to accomplish their goals.

Ref: https://youtu.be/NcZxaFfxloo?t=990

When you have tons of paperwork and ZERO deployments (not exaggerating), there's nothing to revert.. just a lot to be disappointed by.

[db48x]

Jon Stewart has a good point there as well, saying “the Democrats think it can’t solve anything unless is solves everything”. Over the last decade or so they’ve weighed everything down with stupidity. Ezra has specific examples; that’s a really good interview.

Another good quote: “It’s almost as if they had designed this machine to make sure that people in rural areas _never_ get broadband…”

Ooh, Ezra: “This is the Biden administration’s process for it’s own bill. They wanted this to happen. This is how liberal government works now.”

[tzs]

Nonsense. It was working fine and following close to the expected schedule. Numerous states had submitted their proposals for how they would use the money, those had been reviewed and approved, and the states were accepting bids from companies to do the construction and starting to select and approve them.

Delaware, Louisiana, and Nevada had selected contractors and passed final federal review and were ready to start construction as soon as the funds were disbursed.

Another 40 had contractors selected and were just waiting for final federal review to complete and funds to be disbursed. If the program had not been changed by the Trump administration most of them would have had construction starting this year.

All large efforts like this take a few years to go from initial passing of the law that enables them to construction actually starting.

[caseysoftware]

Bug: Closed. Works as designed.

[SR2Z]

> Another difficulty is that voters don’t reward Democratic Party for their efforts.

It is worth noting that the Biden admin passed a $42B package of broadband rollout funds in 2021, and then connected ZERO people over the next few years.

This is because special interest groups saddled it with environmental, union, and DEI requirements that were so onerous that nobody was able to actually get/use the funds.

Yes, Democrats plan to do the right thing, but frankly they should be penalized for boondoggles like this. Until the party can sideline its special interest groups to get things done, it's not as simple as "Democrats good, GOP bad."

[1] https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/the-42-...

[tzs]

The arguments at that link are questionable. E.g.

> When states use the federal subsidy to provide access in areas without internet, they no longer have incentives to confirm if the technology being deployed is appropriate for the area or if the customer base needs and wants what is being provided.

It's actually the opposite. When states use federal subsidies they have the freedom to consider the technology that is actually best for the area instead of just what is cheap enough for the state to afford without better help.

When they are limited to whatever is cheapest now they may have to pick something that meets the present needs of rural areas but will be inadequate in a few years.

[SR2Z]

This is also heavily described in _Abundance_. I'm not an expert, but it is beyond doubt that this program did not produce any kind of meaningful results, despite having a moon-landing-sized budget.

Even when it was created, Starlink was obviously the best option for quickly linking rural America to the Internet. That's obvious because that's EXACTLY HOW rural America has actually been linking itself to the Internet, despite it not being covered by the program. In ten years, that's probably still how they'll get online.

I am a Democrat, have been since I could vote, and refuse to vote red for as long as MAGA owns the GOP. It's still exhausting to watch my party flounder and give in to its worst instincts.

[apex3stoker]

That was an illegal move done by Trump. Biden administration proposed regulations for the conditions of the funding and allow states to apply for it. The regulations went through the necessary process to become final and the states went through the work to fulfill the requirements and the fundings were approved to go out of the door based on the trenches.

Trump administration illegally impounded the funding. This has been disallowed for decades but sadly the republican political appointees at the supreme court is allowing him.

[deburo]

It doesn’t even matter, does it. It seems the democrats made a plan spanning multiple elections due to it being loaded with regulations and now Starlink can better serve rural areas at a fraction of the cost (for american taxpayers). Also the planned deployment was 2026 at the earliest?

[apex3stoker]

I think you have your policy preferences and you have the idea that if starlink was allowed, it would magically take much less time to go through regulation process. I think this is not true, but I think we digress.

My point is that democrats don’t get credit and votes for improving internet for rural areas and republicans don’t get punished for destroying progress. The fact that you are criticizing democrats so harsh and think trump breaking the laws doesn’t matter just prove my points.

[HWR_14]

Plans to actually do things take time.

[db48x]

They don’t have to take that long. Seriously, when you build years and years of government reviews and challenges and approvals into the process of awarding funds you have only yourself to blame when the government works for four years and accomplishes nothing. Meanwhile a Starlink, a private company, just starts doing the work. They’ve spent 10 billion dollars of their own money and built a service that is hands down the best internet service available in any rural area of America. They expect to have 11 billion in revenue this year, just 6 years after the service first became available to paying customers.