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