from the failed-extortion-plan dept
Whereas the GOP price range invoice continues to incorporate no restrict of corrupt rubbish that can kill thousands and thousands of People (the cuts to Medicaid and rural hospitals being notably brutal), one key element of the GOP agenda didn’t fairly make the minimize. Ted Cruz had proposed withholding billions of {dollars} in federal broadband grants for states that try any oversight of AI.
The proposal was one in every of a number of minimize to attempt to get the massively unpopular GOP invoice throughout the end line. Because it seems, Cruz had a tricky time getting sufficient help for his ignorant plan, and in the end joined 98 different Senators in a 99-1 vote taking pictures down the modification (Sen. Thom Tillis was the one dissenting vote):
“Dealing with overwhelming opposition from each Democrats and Republicans, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accepted defeat and joined a 99-1 vote towards his personal plan to punish states that regulate synthetic intelligence.”
States are poised to get greater than $42.5 billion {dollars} in broadband deployment subsidies as a part of the 2021 infrastructure invoice. The Broadband Fairness, Entry and Deployment (BEAD), a key element of the invoice, had taken years of collaborative work between state and federal governments. Partially as a result of we would have liked to remap broadband entry throughout each county in the US.
Numerous this cash is poised (as regular) to get dumped within the laps of telecom giants, which is a serious cause Cruz’s gambit failed (AT&T drove heavy opposition by longtime AT&T ally Marsha Blackburn, who initially labored with Cruz on a “compromise” providing, earlier than that collapsed completely). However a lot of this cash can also be poised to go to essentially helpful fiber improve proposals by way of efforts like regional cooperatives or community-owned broadband networks.
If the invoice had handed states would have been confronted with selecting between funding rural broadband, or avoiding oversight of more and more reckless AI giants eager on ignoring what’s left of U.S. labor and environmental customarys. They’d have positively taken the broadband cash.
Cruz and the GOP have additionally been busy “serving to” American broadband connectivity in different methods, like his current profitable effort to kill an FCC program that helped give poor rural schoolkids entry to free Wi-Fi. In addition to killing a program that made broadband extra inexpensive for low-income People. And the unlawful dismantling of the Digital Fairness Act and its protections towards broadband discrimination.
So whereas it’s good Ted Cruz’s newest dumb effort failed, it’s exhausting to be celebratory. Republicans have been taking an absolute hatchet to each final federal effort to make sure our monopoly-dominated broadband networks are inexpensive. They’ve additionally successfully killed all federal shopper safety; insurance policies that can reverberate in unfavourable methods for many years to return.
The price range battle adopted the pretty typical Republican playbook: make your preliminary supply so extremist and terrible that any concessions are disguised to really feel like a victory. However the ultimate GOP price range invoice stays a large and unpopular piece of shit, and one of the corrupt and disgusting assaults on weak People within the historical past of contemporary politics.
Filed Underneath: ai, bead, broadband, excessive velocity web, infrastructure, moratorium, regulation, ted cruz, telecom, texas
Corporations: at&t
