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Trump Pushes To Expand High-Speed Internet In Rural America (reuters.com)
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday to make it easier for the private sector to locate broadband infrastructure on federal land and buildings, part of a push to expand high-speed internet in rural America. Reuters reports: "We need to get rural America more connected. We need it for our tractors, we need it for our schools, we need it for our home-based businesses," a White House official told reporters ahead of Trump's speech at the annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation. "We're not moving mountains but we're certainly getting started," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to preview Trump's actions. The White House described the moves as an incremental step to help spur private development while the administration figures out what it can do to help with funding, something that could become part of Trump's plan to invest in infrastructure. "We know that funding is really the key thing to actually changing rural broadband," a second White House official said. Reuters cites a 2016 report from the Federal Communications Commission, noting that 39 percent of rural Americans lack access to high-speed internet service.
He is very familiar with rural people and their needs. He grew up in the small town of Manhattan. Upper West Side. He is one of US!
Didn't the FCC just change the definition of broadband to 10 mbps down 1 mbps up? I don't think I understand what's happening in this administration.
Some suspect he's rewarding those who voted for him and punishing blue states and their infrastructure projects.
He's known to personally reward loyalty and punish non-loyalty above personal doctrine or dogma. Even though he's pro-infrastructure, he still may avoid blue-state infrastructure as punishment for not voting for him and/or giving him poor ratings.
The recent tax bill also tilts toward red states in that state and local taxes cannot be deducted as much as before from the total taxed. (Some may claim this is "more fair", but blue states already pay a disproportionate amount of money to the Federal Gov't, per population.)
Table-ized A.I.
But this is just gonna be a gimme to the fine people at Comcast and AT&T.
And everyone else who already does or wants to do broadband.
You know that "easier" doesn't mean "free", it means "it can happen". As in, previously forbidden access to federal buildings or sites can now be granted."
Whelp.. the Trump trainwreck just keeps on a rollin'!
I thought the FCC was in the process of relaxing the definition of broadband so the established players could pretend they were doing more than they are?
You can't tell by some of the comments.
At this point if the executive order provided free high speed internet to all Americans the headline would probably be
"Trump signs order making it easier to spy on all Americans".
At least he didn't threaten rape victims. Or got them fired and then sent the IRS after them the same day, claiming that they had surprisingly nice cars for unemployed people.
(^ Yes, Clinton did all that)
lucm, indeed.
The key part is this: "We know that funding is really the key thing to actually changing rural broadband," a second White House official said.
In other words, more Federal government spending. Those guys really like to spend taxpayers money.
Just write a check to your cronies
You got it all wrong. The cronies are the one sending checks... Congress then pass appropriation bills and spending packages based purely on their conscience and on what they think is best for the country.
lucm, indeed.
The 'right to repair' movement is using tractors as an example of manufacturers being evil - restricting the rights of people who have purchased tangible devices to repair them.
If they're not already full of computers (much like a car is these days), they soon will be. With wireless diagnostics and controls. And with that will come the 'option' for firmware updates, which will then become mandatory with a periodic phone-home requirement or they'll shut down the tractors.
So yes, tractors have managed without Internet (at all!) until fairly recently... but the people making the tractors don't want that to continue any longer than they can help.
You can't tell by some of the comments.
At this point if the executive order provided free high speed internet to all Americans the headline would probably be
"Trump signs order making it easier to spy on all Americans".
Damn!
Just checking the early comments, and it's all "he's only rewarding the red states for voting him in", "it's encroachment on public lands - will end with offshore drilling and commercialization of public lands", "write a check to your cronies".
They left out "he's only doing it to watch liberal heads explode".
Even though I disliked Obama and [president] Clinton, at least I accepted that they were duly elected, and note that they did some things that were actually good for the country. Notably, Clinton reduced regulations and reduced the deficit (and national debt) for awhile.
Is there *nothing* good that will come from this president?
At least he's no longer literally Hitler. That's progress.
A) Broadband companies have received well over a billion taxpayer dollars in both direct and indirect subsidies since the Clinton administration. How can providing them with more taxpayer money possibly do any good?
B) With the massive tax cut just implemented, these companies should be rolling in dough and not need taxpayer help.
C) Why is it when we hear about subsidies for wind or solar we're told those companies should either stand on their own or die on the vine, yet for established, multi-billion dollar companies no amount of taxpayer funds is ever enough?
Cue post after post spinning this into something nefarious in some way even though up until now everybody here was screaming for this.
Yeah - that was awesome!
(Remember when you said it was OK to do that?)
Executive orders in the face of a Congress & Senate that outright refuse to even talk about the issues you want heard is one thing. Writing more than all other presidents in the last 50 years because you really wish you were a dictator and not bothering to even ask the legislature who is your own party and holds majorities in both Congress and the Senate is quite another.
Also, taking something you hated when the other guy did it and going completely wild with it when you're in power, is not winning. It's just being a ginormous hypocrite.
Just in case you have forgotten, the election is long over and Clinton will not run again. It's the current president of the United States the people are rightly worried about.
We need it for our tractors
That's an odd thing to say. Perhaps the driver for this is the desire of tractor makers to limit use. Sorry Mr Farmer, you need to pay for this broadband since your tractor will not work unless it can phone home over wifi every five minutes.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Amusingly, Wikipedia has a list of executive orders per year. Trump's 12-month executive order total equals Obama's last 15 months in office. Not 50 years. And Carter (37 years ago) was the last President to issue executive orders at a higher rate than Trump. If you're going to badmouth him, at least get your facts right.
I suspect Trump's rate is high just because this was his first year, and many of his executive orders were rolling back or modifying Obama's executive orders. Nothing hypocritical about that. As much as Democrats would've loved it if Trump had kept all of Obama's executive orders in force, we all knew that simply wasn't realistic. The next 3 years will tell if he's a hypocrite about executive orders.
You need to look at the numbers of "presidential memorandum" as well - calling an executive action with the force of law something different doesn't mean it really is. Memoranda have the added bonus of not even needing to be published!