If past efforts are a guide, President Barack Obama’s plan to spend $7.2 billion to bring broadband to rural communities may fall short of its goals.
President Obama needs to provide more than just broad guidelines for his $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus
Money allocated under earlier government efforts to bring Internet connections to America’s smallest communities hasn’t always been spent properly.
This is the conclusion of a report by the inspector general at the Department of Agriculture that was released this week and which examined the $1.35 billion in loans that have been granted since 2001.
The report points to a necessity for the new Obama program: establish clear rules and accountability. If Obama fails to lay out clear details for the program, the money will not be allocated with a well-defined purpose and some of it is likely to be wasted.
The report found that some of the earlier loans were made to communities that already had broadband service and which were close to metropolitan areas, instead of in rural areas of the country.
When confronted with Congressional demands to revise the program, administrators hesitated to make changes to the program’s rules, the report found.
The administrators said they were waiting for Congressional revisions to the program expected in 2008. In the meantime, however, they had proposed rules limiting the loans to communities with fewer than four service providers – a definition that could be argued to include most of the country.
If Obama wants his proposal to succeed, he had better offer more than the broad overview he has offered so far.
Posted by Mark Boslet 
