Clinton Ready With Infrastructure Plan Providing 'Technology and Innovation' Jobs, She Tells DNC
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton touted her planned infrastructure investment package, which will include a focus on broadband deployment (see 1607280047), both Thursday during her Democratic National Convention speech and Friday during a campaign speech, both in Philadelphia. “Within the…
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first 100 days of my administration, we’re going to break through the gridlock in Washington and make the biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs since World War II,” she pledged Friday, saying “we’re going to do it in infrastructure, technology,” among other areas. Clinton would “work with both parties” to advance this package, creating jobs in “technology and innovation,” she said in her convention speech. “If we invest in infrastructure now, we'll not only create jobs today, but lay the foundation for the jobs of the future.” An American Enterprise Institute scholar criticized the broadband policy efforts the Clinton campaign laid out. “Clinton’s broadband plan is largely a subsidy program,” said Mark Jamison, visiting fellow with AEI’s Center for Internet, Communication and Technology, in a blog post Friday. “The agenda says it would grow broadband by expanding and extending to new government institutions the subsidies currently provided under the Department of Commerce’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and the FCC’s E-rate program, growing the FCC’s Lifeline program, continuing the Rural Utilities Service program for broadband, and providing broadband grants to governments from a $25 billion Infrastructure Bank that she intends to create. All of these elements of the plan allow significant political discretion regarding who receives money. If experience is any guide, these initiatives will be replete with failed and uncompleted projects, political favoritism, and little if any positive impact.” The path would “create waste,” Jamison argued.