That’s one part of the Harris problem: She’s trying to run as a newcomer when, in fact, she has been in power for years and has a record to answer for. But there’s another part of the Harris problem, and that is the things she claims to have accomplished aren’t what she says they are. Look at two examples: her $42.45 billion promise to make high-speed internet available nationwide and her $7.5 billion promise to build electric vehicle charging stations around the country.
Harris likes to say that “President Biden and I made the largest investment in affordable, high-speed internet in history.” (She often makes it sound like it was her money rather than that of the taxpayers.) On June 26, 2023, she took part in a
White House ceremony celebrating the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program, known as BEAD, which was intended to bring internet service to “unserved and underserved” rural areas. “In the 21st century in America, high-speed internet is not a luxury. It is a necessity,” Harris said. “Every person in our nation, no matter where they live, should be able to access and afford high-speed internet.”
The money for the program came from the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed by Congress on Nov. 6, 2021. The bill was part of a wave of massive spending measures that Joe Biden counts as his greatest accomplishment as president — and that also fed the inflation that reduced the standard of living for millions of people. Harris is very proud of the measure, in part because Biden gave her responsibility for turning legislation into real action.
“I am asking the vice president to lead this effort, if she would, because I know it will get done,” Biden said in an
address to Congress in April 2021. “Of course,” Harris answered.
But here’s the problem. The Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program hasn’t accomplished anything. Nothing. “In 2021, you were specifically tasked by President Biden to lead the administration’s efforts to expand broadband services to unserved Americans,” nine Republican senators
wrote to Harris last month. “And at the time, you stated, ‘we can bring broadband to rural American today.’ Despite your assurances over three years ago, rural and unserved communities continue to wait for the connectivity they were promised. Under your leadership, not a single person has been connected to the internet using the $42.45 billion allocated for the BEAD program.”
That’s correct. “Three years later, ground hasn’t been broken on a single project,” the
Wall Street Journal editorial page
noted last week. “The administration recently said construction won’t start until next year at the earliest, meaning many projects won’t be up and running until the end of the decade.”