As I write this, President Obama's stimulus package is up for a final vote in the Senate tomorrow. As originally written, State and Local Government are set to receive aid in the neighborhood of $160 billion, some of which states are already planning to spend on expanding internet broadband to all of their citizens.
Case in point: Vermont. According to a February 3, 2009 NPR broadcast, the State of Vermont is expecting to see at least $10 Million earmarked specifically to expand broadband coverage (http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/83876/);
Senator Patrick Leahy, who is a member of the Senate Appropriations committee, compares the need to have high speed access to the Internet to the expansion of electricity in Vermont 75 years ago.
The same, I gather, would hold true for many, if not all of the states in the nation.
However, yesterday, on Sunday February 8, 2009, CNN reported that changes in the offing to the bill threatened to cut $2 billion allocated specifically for broadband development; along with--to me--important items like $16 billion for school construction, and $40 billion for state fiscal stabilization.
This however, was when the total bill was set at $780 billion; today, Monday February 9, according to msnbc.com, the Senate bill up for a possible vote tomorrow is now for $827 billion, so some items have been put back in--let's hope the $2 billion for broadband is one of them.
And so, as this bill is still in flux, many are holding their breath to see (a) whether the bill will in fact pass at all; and (b) what will be cut from it when or if it does.
Think good broadband thoughts.
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