Political Quotes

“Mr. President, even though the amendment has been objected to, I am going to talk about it. The amendment is to require the Rural Utilities Service of the Department of Agriculture to ensure that the grants and loans it makes to provide access to broadband telecommunications services in rural areas are made to rural areas that don't already have access to broadband. Wait a minute. Why would we want an amendment to do that? This is an amendment to tell them to do what they are supposed to be doing. Over the years, the rural broadband program has seen a large amount of Federal funding. In 2009, the Department of Agriculture broadband program received $2.5 billion from the stimulus bill. The inspector general examined the Rural Utilities Service broadband loan and guarantee program, and what he found was that a large majority of the funds went to areas that already had broadband services. In other words, they didn't spend the money where we don't have broadband; they spent the money where we already do. Specifically, this inspector general found that 148 communities that received broadband service funded by this program were within 30 miles of cities with more than 200,000 people--including the cities of Chicago and Las Vegas. Some of the Federal funds going to broadband programs originate from the Department of Commerce as well. So we have the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Commerce both doing the same thing.…”