How Do We Turn The RUS's $2.5 Billion Into $25 Billion?

There's lots of talk about how there's not enough money in the stimulus to lay broadband everywhere, and that's generally true. $7 billion doesn't go all that far when spread across the entire country. But unlike the $4.2 billion set aside for NTIA grants, the $2.5 billion allocated to RUS can be distributed as grants, loans, or loan guarantees. This is an important point to note as depending upon how much RUS sets aside for loan and loan guarantees they may have a whole lot more money to work with. The reason for this is that loans and loan guarantees don't count dollar-for-dollar against the budget. Instead because of the assumption that some portion of the loans will be paid back and/or some of the guarantees will never be cashed in you only have to count a fraction of the loan or guarantee value against the budget. If RUS were to focus all of its $2.5 billion on loans and guarantees rather than grants they'd actually have the ability to hand out at least $25 billion in government support, and potentially even more than that depending on how risky the projects they're investing in are. But RUS may follow NTIA's lead and focus most of its attention on giving out grants.