March 1, 2017

Senate Commerce Committee

512 Dirksen Senate Building
Washington DC, 20510

Dear Members of the Senate Commerce Committee:

The undersigned groups, representing millions of taxpayers nationwide,

applaud your work on ensuring that proper oversight is exercised to protect
taxpayers interests in preparation for a possible infrastructure bill.

Todays hearing on infrastructure and information networks is critical for all

Americans. There are important questions that must be asked to determine the
best approach for the role of the public sector in these endeavors.

While the need for expanding broadband access to rural Americans is real, we
would caution that there is a long history of problems when government plays
the lead role in planning, building, and maintaining communications networks.

In the past, government has used stimulus programs and other broadband-
expansion programs that have allowed and even encouraged government
ownership of broadband networks, and the results have not been good.

The Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program (BTOP) and Broadband

Initiatives Program (BIP), as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act (ARRA), spent billions of taxpayer funds to fix the problem of unserved
areas in rural communities across America. Unfortunately, the results were
less than ideal, and resulted in only a modest improvement in rural broadband
access.

Across the country, there has been a consistent pattern of taxpayer-funded

broadband networks failing. The United States Congress and the Trump
Administration should not look to repeat, much less expand upon these failures
by following the same pattern. The failure of these public-sector projects
continues to grow. The following linked website provides a map outlining 215
government-internet failures that continue to cost taxpayers.

Billions of dollars have been wasted on these networks without solving the
problem of bringing broadband to unserved rural areas. The Senate must take
care that any new infrastructure legislation does not cause that number to grow.

Instead, the Senate should look for creative ways that will enable the private
sector to lead the way, as they have already done over the last two decades.
New technologies thrive when government encourages them by removing
regulatory and tax burdens at the federal, state, and local levels. Alternatively,
government intrusion into a sector as complicated and innovative as broadband
provision is likely to reduce private investment, which will ultimately harm
consumers and increase the risk to taxpayers.

We encourage the Committee to explore ways to remove government barriers

to broadband expansion and to seek the advice and participation of the growing
number of broadband providers to solve the problem of unserved rural areas.
Sincerely,

David Williams, President

Taxpayers Protection Alliance

Grover Norquist, President

Americans for Tax Reform

Phil Kerpen, President

American Commitment

Jeff Mazzella, President

Center for Individual Freedom

Katie McAuliffe, Executive Director

Digital Liberty

George Landrith, President

Frontiers of Freedom

Andrew Langer, President

Institute for Liberty

Seton Motley, President

Less Government

Pete Sepp, President

National Taxpayers Union

Drew Johnson, National Director

Protect Internet Freedom