Grants are paid for by taxes.
Many tax pennies were spent.
Just because it didn't come out of the city council pot makes no difference.
Could be a good use of taxes but I don’t think it’s correct to say “not a penny of tax revenues spent”.
He literally said 'no tax pennies were spent'.
They obviously were, what he wrote is factually incorrect, taxes are taxes, just because they didn't have to rise council tax is totally irrelevant.
He also claimed "There is absolutely nothing about this service that is a hand out from the government".
That is also completely WRONG if as he claimed they received state and federal grants. A lie. It is subsidised.
i.e. You're completely wrong, the original poster woefully misunderstands taxes and grants if he's claiming no handouts and and taxes, please stop now.
I think broadband should be a public utility, this has got nothing to do with my politics, it's simply pointing out the original comment is factually incorrect in its claims.
His town's broadband was subsidised, it was built using tax payer pennies and it did require a handout.
If you want to go down that road, however, grant dollars are already allocated and could thus be considered already spent.
Do you really want to be having an argument about what spend means?
> municipalities and electric cooperatives in the state do not have access to the proposed $250 million broadband expansion grant program that will be established
"without a single penny spent of local tax dollar money. We've been fortunate to get enough grant money from both state and federal to get this off the ground."
That will get local support as local anti-tax people know that if they don't spend the state/fed money, other towns will. They won't get lower state/fed taxes.
If the tax dollars aren't necessary & the vision is profitable, why does it need to be municipal? Can't these people just start their own company? Something here seems a bit weird.
OP is bragging that the municipality is paying for a service without increasing local taxes to pay for it. Increasing local taxes is the obvious way that municipalities typically pay for something like this. But increasing local taxes also generates predictable and often persuasive complaints from old cranks who never want to increase local taxes. OP's muni is thus circumventing those complaints by using grant money for the rollout.
While it's true that state and fed grants use tax dollars, it's irrelevant to the OP's brag. E.g.,
Old crank at meeting says, "I don't want to pay more money for a service I don't need." Applause break.
Old crank at meeting says, "I don't think it's right to take a grant created with state and federal taxes which I don't believe in paying." Awkward silence.
Edit: clarification