Brunswick Beacon, 01.25.24
President Biden visited Raleigh last week, bringing $3 billion to build and fund NC’s internet. “High-speed internet isn’t a luxury anymore. It’s an absolute necessity. The investment in high-speed internet means something else as well: good-paying jobs.”
The investment is part of Biden’s Infrastructure Act, which investment bank Morgan Stanley says is “driving a boom in large-scale infrastructure” that has allowed the US to “outpace[d] its competitors, recording the G7’s lowest inflation rate and strongest economic recovery.” Morgan Stanley credits Biden’s policies with an economic surge so great it forced a “sizable upward revision” to its estimates for U.S. economic growth.
Morgan Stanley concludes: “This demonstrates that the Biden administration’s policy decisions have played a clear role in the nation’s comparatively quick recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Every NC Republican representative, including our congressman David Rouzer, voted against Biden’s Infrastructure Act. Rouzer nearly cost NC $4.9 billion in federal grants in 2023 for roads and bridges, ports, airports and waterways, clean drinking water, clean energy, and power grid improvements.
Rouzer’s latest attempt to deprive the district of federal funds is succeeding. Biden’s Infrastructure Act includes the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which brings affordable, high-speed internet access to fixed income retirees and other low-income households, especially in under-served rural areas. ACP helps 841,000 North Carolinians, about 46% of eligible N.C. households. Only three states depend on it more.
Morgan Stanley says, “The U.S. economy is well-positioned, and additional economic investments should help ensure that its economic future remains strong.” Rouzer refuses to make those investments.
With 80,924 households enrolled, and $42.5 million in funding, Rouzer’s District 07 benefits more than any other NC district. Still, Rouzer is rejecting Pres. Biden’s and Governor Cooper’s pleas that Rouzer fund ACP! The FCC announced that, without funding, ACP will end in April.
Rouzer is depriving District 07 of much-needed federal aid because Republicans won’t help Biden help you. Remember that in November.
Kristine Garrity
Calabash