Dana Milbank has a very good article on the trials and travails of bringing high-speed internet to his rural town. This is the part that’s frustrating (boldface mine):

The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, for example, devoted $65 billion to the task, including $42 billion for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program. Among other pieces of legislation, the 2021 American Rescue Plan provided an additional $10 billion that states could use for high-speed internet…

Villages in the county have broadband, but when it looked several years ago into extending it over some 300 miles of roads to the remaining 2,000 households, it found the cost would be about $25 million — a nonstarter for a local government whose entire annual operating budget is $30 million. Before the pandemic, Rappahannock asked for bids from internet service providers — and it got none.

…Because of the federal funds, supplemented by state funds, it would cost the county just $5.9 million in seed money. A local philanthropist and foundation donated $4.5 million of that, and the county used unspent covid relief funds for the rest. “It’s the best deal we ever could have found, and only because of massive subsidies,” argues Keir Whitson, the supervisor board’s vice chair.

Even then, two of the five county supervisors raised objections. They forced the county to miss its payment to All Points Broadband by boycotting the vote to approve the funds. Rappahannock now finds itself last in line among the eight counties for broadband installation, a situation All Points Broadband’s chief, Jimmy Carr, told me is “dependent on a number of factors.”

One problem when local and state governments are involved in administrating federal programs is that these local governments, through a combination of ineptitude and ideology (and don’t forget greed!), can hamstring these federal programs. What happens then, of course, is that the program itself and ‘government’ in the abstract are blamed for failure, and the cycle of stupidity perpetuates itself. Local and state elections matter far more than many people realize, and not just for the high-profile (and, yes, important) issues.