That was an illegal move done by Trump. Biden administration proposed regulations for the conditions of the funding and allow states to apply for it. The regulations went through the necessary process to become final and the states went through the work to fulfill the requirements and the fundings were approved to go out of the door based on the trenches.

Trump administration illegally impounded the funding. This has been disallowed for decades but sadly the republican political appointees at the supreme court is allowing him.

It doesn’t even matter, does it. It seems the democrats made a plan spanning multiple elections due to it being loaded with regulations and now Starlink can better serve rural areas at a fraction of the cost (for american taxpayers). Also the planned deployment was 2026 at the earliest? Lmao

Plans to actually do things take time.

They don’t have to take that long. Seriously, when you build years and years of government reviews and challenges and approvals into the process of awarding funds you have only yourself to blame when the government works for four years and accomplishes nothing. Meanwhile a Starlink, a private company, just starts doing the work. They’ve spent 10 billion dollars of their own money and built a service that is hands down the best internet service available in any rural area of America. They expect to have 11 billion in revenue this year, just 6 years after the service first became available to paying customers.

I think you have your policy preferences and you have the idea that if starlink was allowed, it would magically take much less time to go through regulation process. I think this is not true, but I think we digress.

My point is that democrats don’t get credit and votes for improving internet for rural areas and republicans don’t get punished for destroying progress. The fact that you are criticizing democrats so harsh and think trump breaking the laws doesn’t matter just prove my points.

The arguments at that link are questionable. E.g.

> When states use the federal subsidy to provide access in areas without internet, they no longer have incentives to confirm if the technology being deployed is appropriate for the area or if the customer base needs and wants what is being provided.

It's actually the opposite. When states use federal subsidies they have the freedom to consider the technology that is actually best for the area instead of just what is cheap enough for the state to afford without better help.

When they are limited to whatever is cheapest now they may have to pick something that meets the present needs of rural areas but will be inadequate in a few years.

This is also heavily described in _Abundance_. I'm not an expert, but it is beyond doubt that this program did not produce any kind of meaningful results, despite having a moon-landing-sized budget.

Even when it was created, Starlink was obviously the best option for quickly linking rural America to the Internet. That's obvious because that's EXACTLY HOW rural America has actually been linking itself to the Internet, despite it not being covered by the program. In ten years, that's probably still how they'll get online.

I am a Democrat, have been since I could vote, and refuse to vote red for as long as MAGA owns the GOP. It's still exhausting to watch my party flounder and give in to its worst instincts.