$3 Billion Spent, No One Knows Where The Money Went

[OldCoyote]

Another successful government program,  Three billion spent,  No one knows where it went,  Do I get to thank Obama for this?

Happened on his watch.

www.politico.com/story/2015/07/broadband-coverage-rural-area-fund-mishandled-120601.html?hp=t3_r

[billisonboard]

I read the link and it in no way supports the title of this thread. 

[mroped]

An agency created in the 30s somehow ends up being Obama's fault if it doesn't deliver.
why is that? Is it because he signed a recovery bill that included it?

[billisonboard]

It is, IM(not so)HO, a legitimate criticism of the government's chief executive when things are not properly managed. I think you should accurately identify the problem when you criticize, but still legit. 

[OldCoyote]

Jul 28, 2015 20:03:30 GMT -5 mroped said:

An agency created in the 30s somehow ends up being Obama's fault if it doesn't deliver.
why is that? Is it because he signed a recovery bill that included it?

In September 2011, as the U.S. economy continued to sputter in the shadow of the Great Recession, Jonathan Adelstein offered a bold promise on behalf of a tiny federal agency that had long strived to improve the lives of rural Americans.
Story Continued Below

The administrator of the little-known Rural Utilities Service had just finished announcing $3.5 billion in aid to expand high-speed Internet access to the hardest-to-reach areas of the country. The awards, part of the federal stimulus passed by Congress two years earlier, had been crucial to President Barack Obama’s blueprint for a recovery that would ensure farmers and remote businesses could compete in an increasingly global economy.


Read more: www.politico.com/story/2015/07/broadband-coverage-rural-area-fund-mishandled-120601.html#ixzz3hFau239G

Sure looks like it states Sept 2011.

[OldCoyote]

We are left with a program that spent $3 billion,” Mark Goldstein, an investigator at the Government Accountability Office, told POLITICO, “and we really don’t know what became of it.”

Sorry I did not understand that this was a great success story.

Maybe it was,   it was only $3 billion down the drain.

[Opti]

OP, do you actually read and understand the link(s) you posted? The fact is

1) $3.5 billion has NOT been fully spent

2) No one knows where the money went literally means no person anywhere knows where the money

went which is pure BS. Someone, probably several, know exactly where the money spent has gone.

and 3) with only minimal skimming of the article I discovered not only is all the money not spent

SOME OF IT MAY NOT BE SPENT AT ALL! (Emphasis mine.)

You can read about it in the very link you posted.

A POLITICO investigation has found that roughly half of the nearly 300 projects RUS approved as part of the 2009 Recovery Act have not yet drawn down the full amounts they were awarded. All RUS-funded infrastructure projects were supposed to have completed construction by the end of June, but the agency has declined to say whether these rural networks have been completed. More than 40 of the projects RUS initially approved never got started at all, raising questions about how RUS screened its applicants and made its decisions in the first place.

But a bigger, more critical deadline looms for those broadband projects still underway: If these networks do not draw all their cash by the end of September, they will have to forfeit what remains. In other words, they may altogether squander as much as $277 million in still-untapped federal funds, which can’t be spent elsewhere in other neglected rural communities.


Read more: www.politico.com/story/2015/07/broadband-coverage-rural-area-fund-mishandled-120601.html#ixzz3hFdA8tHt

ETA: $277 million, roughly 10% of $3 billion is at risk at never being spent at all from the bill. Surprised the conservative in you isn't dancing over that fact somehow.

[billisonboard]

Jul 28, 2015 23:23:08 GMT -5 OldCoyote said:

We are left with a program that spent $3 billion,” Mark Goldstein, an investigator at the Government Accountability Office, told POLITICO, “and we really don’t know what became of it.”

Sorry I did not understand that this was a great success story.

Maybe it was,   it was only $3 billion down the drain.

The program was clearly not successful in providing broadband services to rural areas.

The "it" in the quote refers to "program" not the "$3 billion".

[mroped]

In September 2011 Adelstein promised on behalf of the RUS that they will spend the $3.5billion as part of the recovery stimulus on the bringing high speed internet and so on.

This same agency, throughout the 50s 60, 70s gave excellent results so they had a great track record. It was sure fire!
My point was that someone is trying to blame Obama for agreeing to put this agency with a great track record in charge with the program and funded. An agency that was created as part of the New Deal so it is NOT a new agency. They were tested and proven to get results.
What would anybody else have done?
Give more subsidies to the oil industry maybe?

[jkapp]

Jul 28, 2015 23:27:10 GMT -5 Opti said:

OP, do you actually read and understand the link(s) you posted? The fact is

1) $3.5 billion has NOT been fully spent

2) No one knows where the money went literally means no person anywhere knows where the money

went which is pure BS. Someone, probably several, know exactly where the money spent has gone.

and 3) with only minimal skimming of the article I discovered not only is all the money not spent

SOME OF IT MAY NOT BE SPENT AT ALL! (Emphasis mine.)

You can read about it in the very link you posted.

A POLITICO investigation has found that roughly half of the nearly 300 projects RUS approved as part of the 2009 Recovery Act have not yet drawn down the full amounts they were awarded. All RUS-funded infrastructure projects were supposed to have completed construction by the end of June, but the agency has declined to say whether these rural networks have been completed. More than 40 of the projects RUS initially approved never got started at all, raising questions about how RUS screened its applicants and made its decisions in the first place.

But a bigger, more critical deadline looms for those broadband projects still underway: If these networks do not draw all their cash by the end of September, they will have to forfeit what remains. In other words, they may altogether squander as much as $277 million in still-untapped federal funds, which can’t be spent elsewhere in other neglected rural communities.


Read more: www.politico.com/story/2015/07/broadband-coverage-rural-area-fund-mishandled-120601.html#ixzz3hFdA8tHt

ETA: $277 million, roughly 10% of $3 billion is at risk at never being spent at all from the bill. Surprised the conservative in you isn't dancing over that fact somehow.

So your argument is that its okay that $3.223B was wasted instead of $3.5B?

[jkapp]

Jul 29, 2015 11:30:46 GMT -5 mroped said:

In September 2011 Adelstein promised on behalf of the RUS that they will spend the $3.5billion as part of the recovery stimulus on the bringing high speed internet and so on.

This same agency, throughout the 50s 60, 70s gave excellent results so they had a great track record. It was sure fire!
My point was that someone is trying to blame Obama for agreeing to put this agency with a great track record in charge with the program and funded. An agency that was created as part of the New Deal so it is NOT a new agency. They were tested and proven to get results.
What would anybody else have done?
Give more subsidies to the oil industry maybe?

So it took Obama's admin to make it a complete failure of a department...I think you answered the OP's question of "Do I blame Obama for this?"

[billisonboard]

Jul 29, 2015 20:17:22 GMT -5 jkapp said:

... So your argument is that its okay that $3.223B was wasted instead of $3.5B?

There is nothing in the article that indicates what percentage of the total was "wasted".

[Artemis Windsong]

Hookers and booze in exotic locations.

[Opti]

Jul 29, 2015 20:17:22 GMT -5 jkapp said:

Jul 28, 2015 23:27:10 GMT -5 Opti said:

OP, do you actually read and understand the link(s) you posted? The fact is

1) $3.5 billion has NOT been fully spent

2) No one knows where the money went literally means no person anywhere knows where the money

went which is pure BS. Someone, probably several, know exactly where the money spent has gone.

and 3) with only minimal skimming of the article I discovered not only is all the money not spent

SOME OF IT MAY NOT BE SPENT AT ALL! (Emphasis mine.)

You can read about it in the very link you posted.

A POLITICO investigation has found that roughly half of the nearly 300 projects RUS approved as part of the 2009 Recovery Act have not yet drawn down the full amounts they were awarded. All RUS-funded infrastructure projects were supposed to have completed construction by the end of June, but the agency has declined to say whether these rural networks have been completed. More than 40 of the projects RUS initially approved never got started at all, raising questions about how RUS screened its applicants and made its decisions in the first place.

But a bigger, more critical deadline looms for those broadband projects still underway: If these networks do not draw all their cash by the end of September, they will have to forfeit what remains. In other words, they may altogether squander as much as $277 million in still-untapped federal funds, which can’t be spent elsewhere in other neglected rural communities.


Read more: www.politico.com/story/2015/07/broadband-coverage-rural-area-fund-mishandled-120601.html#ixzz3hFdA8tHt

ETA: $277 million, roughly 10% of $3 billion is at risk at never being spent at all from the bill. Surprised the conservative in you isn't dancing over that fact somehow.

So your argument is that its okay that $3.223B was wasted instead of $3.5B?

No, my argument is not all of it has been spent, so how do we even determine what is wasted and what is not? Yes it appears things were mis-managed. But the article is almost useless. We know 50% of the programs and process have not used all their funds. Is that part of the 10% or is there another pile of unused unspent money.

If you don't know the scope, you really don't know very much IMO. (And it appears you and the OP do not know how much was really spent, nor can point to what part of what was spent was wasted and explain why.)

[mroped]

To be a complete failure that means the money completely vanished and absolutely nothing got done. Or as it seems cables and such have been installed and so on. It is just that it didn't achieve the "promised" target. I call that semantics!

As an example: Iraq's invasion was suppose to be a quick work and just some money spent like in " whatever, chump change!"
look at it 13-1/2 years later! Moreover, about that we can all agree that is a complete failure!
And yeah, go ahead:It's Obama's fault!