easyt65
Diamond Member
- Aug 4, 2015
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A very small government agency may be in trouble for reportedly losing BILLIONS of dollars in stimulus cash. Rural Utilities Service promised to bring broadband to millions of Americans, yet pretty much failed to deliver.
Never heard of Rural Utilities Service? I hadn’t either until this POLITICO piece, but some research shows it was created during the New Deal (shocker) as the Rural Electrification Administration before being shuffled over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1994. RUS promises to help out rural communities through water, waste treatment, electrical power, and telecommunications.
Of course, that’s not what happened at all with the taxpayer cash RUS was given in 2009.
2005:
Federal investigators also calculated that RUS had awarded more than $137 million in loans, despite incomplete or inaccurate applications. About $30 million of its loans “[were] in default due to inadequate servicing,” largely because the agency hadn’t developed strong oversight guidelines for its earliest loans — meaning the cash wasn’t “timely and thoroughly monitored.” And another $6.8 million in canceled broadband loans “was not put to use in a timely fashion and was therefore unavailable for future funding.”
2009:
RUS killed 42 broadband infrastructure projects that it had heralded only months earlier. The agency rescinded more than $300 million in loans and grants before a single check was written.
....READ MORE AT:
Report: small government agency lost billions in stimulus cash
It’s really funny how the government wants to be the ones people run to for help, yet they’re the ones who are causing all the problems. It’s a great racket they’ve got going on.
Never heard of Rural Utilities Service? I hadn’t either until this POLITICO piece, but some research shows it was created during the New Deal (shocker) as the Rural Electrification Administration before being shuffled over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1994. RUS promises to help out rural communities through water, waste treatment, electrical power, and telecommunications.
Of course, that’s not what happened at all with the taxpayer cash RUS was given in 2009.
2005:
Federal investigators also calculated that RUS had awarded more than $137 million in loans, despite incomplete or inaccurate applications. About $30 million of its loans “[were] in default due to inadequate servicing,” largely because the agency hadn’t developed strong oversight guidelines for its earliest loans — meaning the cash wasn’t “timely and thoroughly monitored.” And another $6.8 million in canceled broadband loans “was not put to use in a timely fashion and was therefore unavailable for future funding.”
2009:
RUS killed 42 broadband infrastructure projects that it had heralded only months earlier. The agency rescinded more than $300 million in loans and grants before a single check was written.
....READ MORE AT:
Report: small government agency lost billions in stimulus cash
It’s really funny how the government wants to be the ones people run to for help, yet they’re the ones who are causing all the problems. It’s a great racket they’ve got going on.
