Jon Stewart And Ezra Klein Help GOP Paint Infrastructure Bill Broadband Grants As A Useless Boondoggle

Broadband

from the thanks-but-you're-not-helping dept

We’ve long noted how the 2021 infrastructure bill included $42.5 billion for broadband dubbed the Broadband, Equity, Access And Deployment (BEAD) program.

Managed by the NTIA and individual states, we’ve also noted how this money has taken a long time to get to the states for some good reasons. Namely they wanted to avoid the massive fraud and abuse that plagued earlier FCC programs (the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund) mismanaged by the Trump administration and exploited by numerous companies (including Elon Musk’s Starlink).

Under RDOF, the FCC didn’t really take the time to fix shitty U.S. broadband maps, resulting in a lot of wasted, duplicative taxpayer money. Or ensure that ISPs that bid for funding could actually deliver the broadband they claimed. That resulted in a bunch of companies defaulting on millions of dollars in bids. It was a giant mess resulting in a ton of waste, fraud, abuse, and legal problems.

So there’s a reason why the bigger, $42.5 billion BEAD program has more annoying red tape and is managed by a completely different agency. Much of that was to avoid earlier waste, mistargeted funds, and ineffective spending. It takes a long time to accurately map broadband, make sure money isn’t going to be wasted, and confirm ISPs can actually deliver the broadband they promise. Especially if you’re going to actually value the varying input of every single individual state and make sure the subsidies are tailored to their unique needs.

So yes, there were a lot of annoying restrictions with BEAD, but it’s not like they were introduced for bureaucracy’s sake. And the money, while late, was on the cusp of rolling out this year.

Unfortunately, the GOP seized on those delays to paint the whole program as a waste (ignoring their role in why the program has more restrictions). They’re also busy using these complaints to justify redirecting billions in BEAD money away from useful local fiber ISPs, and toward Elon Musk’s congested, expensive, ozone-layer depleting satellite broadband service.

Apparently thinking he was helping matters, NY Times columnist Ezra Klein recently went on Jon Stewart’s podcast to jump into this complicated policy issue and complain about the infrastructure bill. Unfortunately, when he gets to BEAD, his complaints lacked context and only help paint the entire program as an irredeemable waste:

“This is, I want to say something because it’s very important I say this, this is the Biden administration’s process for its own bill. They wanted this to happen. This is how liberal government works now.”

At the end of the interview Stewart is shocked to “learn” that a whole BEAD subsidy program was a complete and abject failure simply because Democrats really like bureaucracy and shot themselves in the foot for their own amusement (which isn’t true):

“I’m speechless, honestly. It’s far worse than I could have imagined. But the fact that they amputated their own legs on this is what’s so stunning.”

Klein and Stewart’s inference that BEAD is entirely a useless boondoggle were then picked up by numerous right wing pseudo-news outlets who further advertised the BEAD program to millions of Americans as a supposed pointless waste.

Which is a shame, because BEAD funding was really poised to help people. At least before the GOP and Trump administration began altering the program to the benefit of a conspiratorial billionaire bigot.

That’s not to suggest BEAD was perfect. There were a lot of annoying and overly cumbersome restrictions (though I argue a lot of them on issues of climate and labor were decorative and wouldn’t have been enforced), causing some ISPs in states like Minnesota to have reservations about applying.

It’s also not to say Democrats aren’t a hot mess on strategy and messaging. And especially on broadband policy, where most of their regulatory solutions are often decorative because of the party’s refusal to take on the real cause of shitty U.S. broadband: consolidated telecom monopoly power.

But quite generally, the BEAD program is a good thing. Driving affordable broadband to unserved locations is a good thing. Making sure we map broadband access accurately before throwing billions of dollars at a program is a good thing. It took a while, but the money was starting to flow this year to a lot of states in desperate need of better, more reliable, more affordable connectivity.

The problem is there’s just a long line of things Klein can’t be bothered to mention, presumably because he didn’t research the situation deeply enough to know.

Like the fact that many BEAD restrictions are a result of Trump-era fraud and mismanagement of previous programs. Or that many of the restrictions on labor and climate were somewhat decorative and never likely to be meaningfully enforced in a country whose regulators are being absolutely destroyed.

Or the fact that other Democratic broadband policy initiatives from that same year were very successful. Like the $25 billion in broadband expansion included in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). ARPA money is, right now, going toward tons of new fiber deployment all over the country. You probably didn’t hear about it because Democrats suck at messaging and the press doesn’t care about infrastructure.

But in many towns and cities, ARPA broadband grants are funding open access community-owned fiber networks resulting in gigabit fiber for as little as $60 a month. These are long-marginalized minority, rural, and low-income neighborhoods that have never been connected before suddenly seeing cheaper broadband than seen in many affluent cities. Had you heard about that? Had Klein?

I think Klein was maybe well intentioned but his simplistic understanding of the debate he jumped into didn’t actually help anybody. Which is often the case when hot take pundits wander outside their core areas of expertise (see: Nate Silver on global pandemics).

From what I can glean from Klein’s current “Abundance” promotional book tour and the surrounding puerile debate, one of his fairly unoriginal theses is the fairly center-right (and sometimes every accurate) complaint that there’s just too much pesky, burdensome regulation.

But in the interviews I’ve seen (whether it’s Stewart or Lex Fridman) he mostly floats over the fact that authoritarians and a broken Supreme Court are completely destroying the regulatory state with what will likely be broad and potentially fatal repercussions.

Myopically fixating on the Democrats’ love of bureaucracy while Trumpism burns functional federal governance to the ground is… odd? You’re bickering about whether California high speed rail sees too much red tape while Trump completely dismantles all labor rights, consumer protections, public safety standards, corporate oversight, and the social safety net?

It’s like bickering over the drapes while an arsonist sets the house on fire.

Genuinely: the red tape affixed to BEAD really is the very least of our problems right now. Authoritarians are absolutely demolishing what’s left of U.S. consumer protection and oversight of shitty predatory monopolies like AT&T and Comcast. Is there some specific reason Klein doesn’t want to give this the same level of hyperventilation while on his book tour trying to maximize book sales?

Again, I think Democrats suck at messaging and strategy and think the party needs to be completely rebuilt with smarter, younger, hungrier, more creative members. I agree that U.S. telecom subsidization is historically a hot mess. I agree U.S. regulation often falls short, adds harmful counterproductive and unnecessary layers, can often be performative, or aids incumbents. I’ve probably spilled more ink about the shittiness of sloppy telecom subsidization and telecom regulatory capture than literally anybody alive.

I guess all I’m asking is for pundits to actually understand the subject they’re talking about before opening their mouths. Klein doesn’t really help U.S. broadband with his comments; his selective, simplistic podcast hot take only really propped up the GOP narrative that this program was irredeemable when, while imperfect and annoyingly bureaucratic, it actually is a good-faith effort at improvement.

Filed Under: abundance, bead, broadband, ezra klein, fiber, high speed internet, infrastructure, jon stewart, telecom