{"id":2448813,"date":"2025-06-18T10:09:01","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T14:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/republicans-reject-unrealistic-400m-broadband-funds-from-budget-washington-examiner\/"},"modified":"2025-06-18T10:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T14:11:15","slug":"republicans-reject-unrealistic-400m-broadband-funds-from-budget-washington-examiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/republicans-reject-unrealistic-400m-broadband-funds-from-budget-washington-examiner\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans reject \u2018unrealistic\u2019 $400M broadband funds from budget &#8211; Washington Examiner"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frepublicans-reject-unrealistic-400m-broadband-funds-from-budget-washington-examiner%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2448813&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Wisconsin Republicans on teh Joint Finance Committee have rejected a $400 million proposal from Democrats aimed at enhancing the Broadband Expansion Grant Program, which seeks to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rural-america-getting-401-million-for-high-speed-internet\/\" title=\"Rural America Getting 1 Million for High-Speed Internet\">provide high-speed internet access<\/a> to rural and underserved areas. The motion was opposed by Republican Senator Romaine Quinn, who expressed concerns about the feasibility of spending that amount effectively within the necessary timeframe, citing a lack of available infrastructure and construction resources. Governor Tony Evers highlighted that a significant portion of Wisconsin residents still <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >lacks affordable internet access<\/a>, with over 262,000 locations identified as &#8220;unserved.&#8221; He argued that the funding was crucial, especially given the delays in federal support due to the previous governance&#8217;s review of broadband programs.U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick criticized past regulatory policies for hindering internet access initiatives. Republican Senator Julian Bradley emphasized the need for a more effective broadband strategy moving forward, urging a focus on genuinely connecting people rather than merely upgrading existing systems. Further discussions on the capital budget are scheduled for the upcoming Joint Finance Committee meeting.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">Republicans reject &lsquo;unrealistic&rsquo; $400M broadband funds from budget<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_2151763\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p>(The Center Square) &ndash; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/wisconsin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Wisconsin<\/a> Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee rejected a motion from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/democrat\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Democrats<\/a> to make a $400 million investment in the Broadband Expansion Grant Program, which would seek to deliver high-speed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/internet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">internet<\/a> to rural or unserved areas.<\/p>\n<p>The rejected motion came in response to delays President Donald Trump&rsquo;s review of the Broadband, Equity, Access and Development Program,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecentersquare.com\/wisconsin\/article_0541a993-b0f9-4324-ade4-8b2d28eec6c2.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">which Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers objected to<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommended-stories\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/senate\/3445458\/watch-live-senate-judiciary-committee-hearing-biden-cover-up\/\">WATCH LIVE: Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearing on alleged Biden cover-up<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/3445522\/aerospace-company-expanding-tennessee\/\">Aerospace company expanding in Tennessee, state officials said<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/3445523\/state-reallocation-funds-help-tennessee-state\/\">State agrees to reallocation of funds to help Tennessee State<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>However, Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Birchwood, pushed back on Evers&rsquo; proposed $400 million investment, saying it was &ldquo;never realistic to begin with.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Four-hundred-million dollars, that&rsquo;s not even real,&rdquo; Quinn said. &ldquo;We literally can&rsquo;t spend $400 million and get that much fiber in the ground based on the providers we have or the construction crews we have.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Quinn argued the motion was &ldquo;all a talking point,&rdquo; saying, &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t even put $400 million of fiber in the ground in the time period this needs to be spent on top of the fact that we&rsquo;re also going to get BEAD money. It&rsquo;s just being re-worked.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Wisconsin had expected to receive more than $1 billion in BEAD money based on need, according to Evers.<\/p>\n<p>Evers said in a statement that 39% of Wisconsin residents lack access to affordable internet and there are 262,000 locations considered &ldquo;unserved&rdquo; in the state as of December 2024.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m proud my administration has done more than to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/house-progressives-hold-infrastructure-bill-hostage\/\" title=\"House Progressives Hold Infrastructure Bill Hostage\">expand high-speed internet<\/a> than any other administration in state history, but we have a lot of work to do,&rdquo; Evers said.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;With the Trump Administration delaying broadband funding Wisconsin expects to receive&ndash;over my objections&ndash;the $400 million investment I proposed to help expand high-speed internet is critical,&rdquo; Evers said.<\/p>\n<p>However, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had previously said in a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecentersquare.com\/wisconsin\/article_0541a993-b0f9-4324-ade4-8b2d28eec6c2.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">statement<\/a>&nbsp;the program was under review because it was tangled up in &ldquo;woke&rdquo; policy mandates.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Because of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dems-hijack-doug-collins-va-hearing-to-push-abortion-agenda\/\" title=\"Dems Hijack Doug Collins&#039; VA Hearing To Push Abortion Agenda\">prior administration&#038;rsquo<\/a>;s woke mandates, favoritism towards certain technologies, and burdensome regulations, the program has not connected a single person to the internet and is in dire need of a readjustment,&rdquo; Lutnick said.<\/p>\n<p>Lutnick said the Trump administration would work on delivering high-speed internet access at the lowest cost for states by removing delays, waste and diversity preferences before getting homes and businesses connected.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin, said Wisconsin needs a better broadband plan if it&rsquo;s going to be invested in at all.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;When we start talking about connecting people to the last mile, we&rsquo;re going to need to expand beyond the traditional methods that are used today in broadband,&rdquo; Bradley said. &ldquo;We have got to stop just upgrading and spending focus and money on trying to make it look like we&rsquo;re doing more for broadband than we actually are.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/campaigns\/state\/3444295\/wisconsin-supreme-court-gop-law-weakened-state-ag\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT UNANIMOUSLY RULES AGAINST GOP LAW THAT WEAKENED STATE AG POWERS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bradley concluded, &ldquo;We have to actually connect people. We need to have more focus and until we have a plan to do that, gutting this out of budget and rejecting this is the right thing to do.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Capital budget amounts and other motions are planned to be taken up in Thursday&rsquo;s Joint Finance Committee meeting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script><script>!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||[],g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(\"has-featured-video\",\"true\")})}();<\/script><script>var _bp=_bp||[];_bp.push({\"div\":\"Brid_2151763\",\"obj\":{\"id\":\"27789\",\"width\":\"1280\",\"height\":\"720\",\"stickyDirection\":\"below\",\"video\":\"2151763\"}});<\/script><script defer src=\"https:\/\/services.brid.tv\/player\/build\/brid.min.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Republicans dismiss $400M broadband funding proposal in Wisconsin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2448814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/iStock-1329936143-1024x683.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[18429,4463,6513,3756],"class_list":["post-2448813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-broadband","tag-budget","tag-funding","tag-republicans"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/iStock-1329936143-1024x683.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2448813"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2448817,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448813\/revisions\/2448817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2448814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2448813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2448813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2448813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}