The platform for the Democratic National Convention happening in Chicago this week links together investments in broadband infrastructure with policies promoting semiconductors and easing supply chain woes. Broadband infrastructure is featured beginning on page two of the 92-page platform, stating the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is breaking ground on over 57,000 projects across 4,500 communities.
“We’re bringing affordable, reliable, high-speed internet to every American household,” says the party platform. “High-speed internet is as vital to our economy today as electricity first was a century ago; Americans need it to do their jobs, to do their homework, to access health care, and to stay connected.”
But the Dems say 45 million live in areas with no high-speed internet. “Democrats are closing that divide,” states the platform. “These projects don’t just build infrastructure; they create hundreds of thousands of good jobs for American workers.”
The platform says the Dems are “taking historic steps to bring critical supply chains home, and to reaffirm our nation’s leadership in cutting-edge industries that America in fact often pioneered. After the pandemic exposed our reliance on foreign-made semiconductors, we passed the CHIPS and Science Act, to restore America’s role producing the tiny computer chips needed to make everything from cell phones to dishwashers to cars.”
The Dems say under President Biden, they’ve also boosted funding for the kind of R&D “that can seed economy-transforming breakthroughs, like the internet.” It notes that in recent years, America became one of the world’s only major countries to pull back on R&D investments and the Democrats intend to change that, “responsibly leading the way in the defining fields of the future, like AI, biotech, quantum computing, advanced materials, and more.”
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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