President Trump: Broadband Buildout Situation 'Intolerable'

President Donald Trump took issue with the speed of broadband buildouts to rural American and to anchor institutions, calling it an "intolerable" situation, though suggesting as with many other things that it was a problem he had inherited. In the President's Economic Report to the Congress released Feb 21, he suggested the broadband ball had been dropped on prior watches. "President Clinton promised to connect 'every classroom, every library, and every hospital in America,' to the Internet by 2000," he wrote. "Decades later, 39% of rural Americans still lack high-speed broadband. And a quarter of America’s K-12 students lack adequate Internet connectivity at school. It is intolerable to continue pretending that this is the best America can offer to our students. My Administration is working to expand accessibility and expedite the process of bringing the Internet to hard-to-reach areas."

The President has said rural, particularly farmers' access to broadband was key, and has proposed using $50 billion in federal funds for rural infrastructure, though without earmarking any of that specifically to broadband--he want to leave it up to states to decide how to prioritize the funds.