Mary Guenther

The federal government’s big effort to build out broadband is facing a problem you don’t see often in Washington: There’s now more money left over in the program than anyone knows what to do with. Almost five years ago, Congress committed approximately $41 billion to connect all Americans to high-speed internet as part of its bipartisan infrastructure bill. But in a rare moment of wisdom, the Trump administration revamped the effort by nixing a number of ill-conceived rules that had slowed its progress and added to costs.