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Nashville, TN – In tonight’s Fox 17 Waste Watch investigation, we uncover how billions of our tax dollars poured into a program to hook people up with broadband internet.
The problem is many people are still offline. Now some are calling for an end to the agency managing the tax-funded project. Citizens Against Government Waste, along with the Office of Inspector General, has been calling out the Rural Utilities Service which operates under the US Department of Agriculture.
The RUS has been under the microscope throughout the years regarding its funding for the Broadband Initiatives Program. The government gave $2.5 billion dollars to the RUS in the 2009 stimulus bill for the program. An additional billion dollars has been allocated to it in 2013, supposed to be spent by the end of June 2015, helping connect millions of under served rural Americans with internet access.
Today, that mission is far from complete. The OIG has found that the RUS has spent more than $5 million dollars providing service where service already exists. Furthermore, investigators found broadband hasn’t been extended to thousands of those who need it.
According to the OIG report, of about $3.4-billion dollars allocated for this project by 2013, only 3-percent of the program funding actually went to unserved rural areas. Fox 17 called the Rural Utilities Service for answers and have yet to get a response.
The CAGW says it’s not that the technology isn’t needed. They say the Rural Utilities Service isn’t needed because another government agency, the FCC, is working toward the same goal.
Source: fox17
Waste Watch: Billions for Broadband
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