April 26, 2023

As Ronald Reagan used to say, “The closest thing to eternal life on earth is a government program.” And that was long before the federal government spent $6.27 trillion last year, with a deficit of $1.38 trillion and an inflation rate of 6.04 percent — the consequence of too much money chasing too few goods.

Even the most wasteful federal programs rarely die. And even as fiscal excess pushes us to the brink of crisis, some in Congress continue to dream up new spendthrift and superfluous programs to dig our hole even deeper.

One particularly egregious example: Under the pretext of trying to expand rural broadband access, some Senate Democrats are pushing billions of dollars in new subsidies for electric utilities to build “middle-mile” broadband networks that won’t directly connect even a single unserved home.

It’s an unholy marriage of wasteful spending and crony capitalism — and fiscal conservatives in Congress should refuse to go along.

Middle-mile networks are the digital infrastructure connecting local internet networks with major backbone networks. If your home internet connection is like the street in front of your house, consider the middle-mile as the county road connecting your subdivision to the nearest superhighway.

But the fact is: With broadband networks currently reaching at least 93 percent of American homes and businesses, most communities already have robust middle-mile infrastructure. There are no data suggesting middle-mile traffic jams are a pressing telecommunications challenge requiring multibillion-dollar federal interventions.

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