The study shows that the RUS’ history of funding duplicative service has continued under its Broadband Initiatives Program and that the current program is not a cost-effective means of achieving universal broadband availability.
The study examined three large BIP subsidy awards which total $231.7 million, or about seven percent of the total BIP $3.5 billion combined loan and grant program:
- $101.2 million in western Kansas
- $66.4 million for Lake and St. Louis counties in northeastern Minnesota
- $64.1 million to cover a portion of Gallatin County in southwest Montana.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) included $7.2 billion to subsidize broadband deployment – $4.7 billion to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and $2.5 billion to RUS. The NTIA and RUS programs funded by ARRA make up the largest federal subsidies ever provided for broadband construction in the U.S.
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The taxpayers would have gotten MUCH better 35%+ buying power under the RUS Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP)and NTIA's BTOP program if Congress and the U.S. Department of Labor had not been involved in mandating so called "prevailing wage rates" under Davis-Bacon as is done on virtually all highway and other government construction projects subsidized by taxpayers. This provision requires contractors/ award recipents/and ultimately the taxpayers to pay grossly inflated wages for certain construction trades. Example: non-skilled/ semi-skilled telecom laborer under Davis-Bacon is mandated to be paid at a "heavy construction" rate of $30-$32/hr plus an additional $8/hr in fringe benefits(total ~$38-40/hr) in Wisconsin. Compare this to actual wage rates in the telecom industry of $16-$19/hr including finge benefits for a general laborer in normal non-government subsidized Telecom fiber optic construction projects.
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