back to article Maybe high-speed internet is infrastructure after all, say US Republicans in proposal to spend $65bn over five years

A cadre of Republican senators have proposed allocating $65bn to developing broadband infrastructure in America as part of a $568bn five-year spending plan. Proposed by Senators Shelley Capito (R-WV), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and John Barrasso (R-WY)), the infrastructure framework has been …

  1. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    This is typical

    Remember that the previous president was elected on the promise on massive infrastructure spending? After his election the proposal was dropped because he spent all the money on tax bonuses for the wealthy. And now his party is "supporting" infrastructure spending for the first time in the last four years to push money to their corporate donors instead of repairing the roads, bridges, rail transportation, airports ... traditional infrastructure, but not profitable infrastructure.

    1. martyn.hare

      Traditional infrastructure is all well and good but...

      The world is moving beyond what Biden is capable of understanding. An entire library worth of books fits within the physical confines of a chip small enough to swallow like a pill, while robotics and AR will likely allow for specialised tasks to be carried out entirely remotely. It is time politicians looked at what can be scaled back and repurposed in a world where most people need fewer physical items than ever before.

      It is also time to start looking at incentivising the pursuit of good health both mentally and physically, rather than the nebulous concept of “happiness” when human emotions are both fleeting and transient. Time for folks to come up with a new set of standards by which to gauge success...

      1. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: Traditional infrastructure is all well and good but...

        Yes, but basic infrastructure is still needed.

        As for the world moving on, it moved WAY past the GOP (and all the other extreme right wings in the world) decades ago. They are dead men walking and know it. Hence their desperation and cruelty.

        1. BrownishMonstr

          Re: Traditional infrastructure is all well and good but...

          Really? The world feels like it's moving more right than left.

          1. jmch Silver badge

            Re: Traditional infrastructure is all well and good but...

            It's actually splitting towards both extremes with a smaller and smaller reasonable middle ground

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: Traditional infrastructure is all well and good but...

              If anything, the middle ground is becoming wider and turning into a desolate wasteland, inhabited only by roving gangs.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Traditional infrastructure is all well and good but...

              Grow a spine.

              Centrists need to get off their lame high horse and pick a side.

              There is a huge difference between bootlicking for the .1% at the expense of the environment and everything else... With the upside of hurting the people you hate... That you have on the right wing.

              Vs

              The left wing (Biden/dnc is centerist at best) that strives for healthcare, education, and infrastructure for everyone, paid for by the .1% who benefit the most from society who will never have to work a day in their life again...

              If you cannot see the difference you are choosing wilful ignorance to avoid making a decision and taking a stand... Or you just don't want to admit you are addicted to billionares boot polish.

              1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                Re: Traditional infrastructure is all well and good but...

                "Centrists need to get off their lame high horse and pick a side."

                There are no "sides". Politics is a broad spectrum. Just because the US is currently gripped in strict "Left" V "Right" doesn't preclude a "Centre" and some variations not as far "Left" or "Right" as you are saying are the "sides" we must choose.

                FWIW, from outside, the Dems are centre-right and the Reps are very-right by the standards of much of the rest of the democratic world. There is no "Left" in the US with any political power. Half a century of "Reds under the bed" and using terms like socialist and liberal as insults have seen to that. All that's left is Right and More Right.

                "If you cannot see the difference you are choosing wilful ignorance"

      2. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: Traditional infrastructure is all well and good but...

        >The world is moving beyond what Biden is capable of understanding.

        That means it had already moved beyond what Trump was capable of understanding before he stood for office...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yeah, right

    Every time I drive into <bigcity> I use a particular overhead highway ramp. It was 'planned' for years and years and years.

    Then 2008 happened and some nice people eventually pushed through funding for infrastructure and other things against the bitter and protracted opposition of Republicans. That long-delayed ramp finally got built, employing people in my neighborhood that I know.

    What's the Republicans' angle now? Is Canada going to pay for it this time?

  3. Shadow Systems

    Get started on the B Ark...

    We need to complete it so we can load all the lawyers, lobbiests, politicians, telemarketers, used car salesfolks, & other assorted wastes of oxygen into it. Once it's full we can launch it into a blackhole & start building the next Ark for the other idiots that evaded the first round.

    Or is that cruelty to blackholes?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: Get started on the B Ark...

      Or is that cruelty to blackholes?

      You could try asking one, but it's nigh on impossible to get anything out of them.

      1. BrownishMonstr

        Re: Get started on the B Ark...

        At least they suck well.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Republicans ... have balked at the high ticket price"

    $100bn? That's nothing - less than a 330-mile high speed railway costs in the UK.

    How much of the USA would get networked-up for that price?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Republicans ... have balked at the high ticket price"

      Yeah, it is a whole ten of the hundreds for new F-series jets they've ordered. Huge investment. Could have been spent on more weapons. :(

  5. ThatOne Silver badge
    Devil

    Guerrilla warfare

    Funny how politicians in the opposition suddenly start advocating the things they were refusing while in power. Those things the lowly masses need, but which are expensive to do, and won't result in any future electoral funding.

    (Note politicians of all sides do it, all over the world.)

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: Guerrilla warfare

      El Trumpo promised and promised an 'Infrastructure Week' but failed to deliver even one. He was totally devoid of ideas. Not surprising really. After all, he is a failed businessman several times over.

      Biden comes in and within 100 days, he has a plan. That must really hurt the GQP drones (like Gaetz, Bobert and M T-G (of space lasers fame))

      All they can do is lie, bluster, lie and say No, No and thrice No to anything that Biden and co want to do.

      With the Senate split 50/50 that have to tread carefully especially with two Repubs in their ranks (Manchin and Senima)

      The whole thing is playing out a soap opera.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Guerrilla warfare

        "El Trumpo promised and promised an 'Infrastructure Week' but failed to deliver even one."

        You mis-heard. He said "infrastructure WEAK".

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "social welfare spending" like the trillions given to corps because of the flu?

  7. jmch Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Funny

    "But it's important that any infrastructure legislation have adequate funding levels"

    Funny how Republican tax cuts never need adequate funding. They all 'pay for themselves' apparently

  8. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Of course it will be a better plan

    It will be the best of plans. It will be the best plan ever made.

    Funny, I thought we were done hearing bullshit like that. They "plan" to spend a quarter of what Biden is proposing and it's supposed to be better ?

    Trump has amply demonstrated the efficiency of Republican planning : the border wall. Four years of xenophobia, lies and fabrications, not to mention financial shenanigans, and the great border wall is a few miles of vertical comb teeth being used by climbers as an exercise.

    The only reason they think the plan is better is because it's their buddies who'll be getting the dough.

    I think it is high time to make a change,

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They're Republicans; most of the money would go to CEO's, board members, and directors or key investors instead of to actual infrastructure development.

    Nor is it any surprise that the sore losers would claim they could do better. Guess they shouldn't have saddled themselves with a deranged egomaniac for the election. :)

  10. deadlockvictim

    The Onion: GOP Argues Government Shouldn’t Be Deciding Which Bridges Succeed Or Fail

    As usual, The Onion puts it best:

    https://www.theonion.com/gop-argues-government-shouldn-t-be-deciding-which-bridg-1846591823

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can an IT prankster help us?

    The article about IT pranks gave me an idea: can some of this merry band set the server for Congress to run all communications at the speed we "enjoy" in the rural areas of the USA? That would be 1.5 Mbps down, 0.3Mbps up, with a message that it would be restored only when all of the inhabited areas of the country enjoyed a reasonable internet speed. Yeah, whoever did it would have to be in a no extradite country, because the Groping Old Perverts would do a Liam Neeson on the perp.

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