Trump Republicans Are Destroying Decades Of Policy Progress On Affordable Broadband

from the and-by-“efficiencies”-we-mean-“destruction” dept

Quick background: the $8 billion FCC Universal Service Fund (USF) applies a small surcharge on traditional phone lines to fund broadband expansion to unserved rural homes, schools, and libraries (of which the U.S. has a lot thanks to rampant telecom monopolization).

While the USF, like all government programs, hasn’t been absent of fraud (usually at the hands of private companies), it’s generally done a lot of good for people stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide. The kind of boring, steady infrastructure work that doesn’t get headlines, or mentioned in books about “abundance.”

Enter Trumpism, which has been taking a merciless hatchet to absolutely any effort, anywhere across government, to try and ensure that Americans — whether rural Trump supporters, struggling school kids, or inner city urban residents — have affordable access to the internet.

The USF is technically overseen by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), which has been tasked since 1998 with overseeing more than $9 billion in broadband subsidies annually. Now FCC boss Brendan Carr has announced a full review of the program, something he says is necessary for the sake of efficiency:

“In taking up this effort, we will improve oversight, reduce administrative costs, and increase
accountability of USAC and its Board of Directors. Our end goal is to ensure Americans receive the best bang for their buck on universal service spending—a commonsense win for government efficiency and accountability.”

This being Trumpism and Brendan Carr, there are obviously red flags in the way they’re going about this.

One being that the Trump administration’s version of “efficiency” and “accountability” — as we saw with DOGE — generally involves the mindless dismantling of useful programs by clowns who have very little functional human empathy or understanding of the things they’re destroying.

One other issue is that Carr historically has never meaningfully opposed giant telecom monopolies like AT&T on any policy battle of note, so the idea that he’s seriously going to root out fraud and abuse of the USF program is laughable. At best it’s likely that the program is retooled to ensure big telecom monopolies get more money in exchange for significantly less subsidy oversight.

Certain Trump Republicans had been pushing for the USF to be destroyed entirely, though that gambit was surprisingly scuttled by the Supreme Court last year. So now the name of the game for that sector of Trumpism will be to destroy the program while trying to make it seem like they’re not destroying the program. Especially when it comes to helping minority communities afford internet access.

Republicans have taken a hatchet to broadband affordability programs across the board, including killing the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provided a $30 broadband discount for low-income Americans — as well as killing a program that provided free Wi-Fi to rural school kids at no additional cost to taxpayers.

The Trump admin also illegally dismantled the Digital Equity Act, which was a bare-bones effort to stop race and class discrimination in broadband upgrades, hijacked billions in infrastructure bill broadband grants to the benefit of Elon Musk, and destroyed what’s left of U.S. federal consumer protection and corporate oversight, ensuring that U.S. ISPs face zero meaningful penalties should they rip you off.

You know, the real flyover country populism-type stuff everybody was clamoring for.

Filed Under: brendan carr, broadband, fcc, telecom, usf