In a country that is slowly going mad, is it any surprise that a program designed to bring broadband access to areas of the country bypassed for the most part by the private sector that politicians in Washington’s can’t agree about the merits?

“Promoting broadband is a laudable goal. But there are many laudable goals,” Republican Greg Walden of Oregon said Wednesday. “From what we know now, the government has spent millions on equipment it did not need and on stringing fiber to areas that already had it.”

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He’s the chair of the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee, and the object of his political wrath were the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and the Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP).

North Carolina’s Research and Education Network is among one of BTOP’s big recipients, and the project is nearing completion – on time and virtually on budget, says MCNC’s Joe Freddoso, who testified before the committee.

“The investments made in broadband infrastructure are having a profound impact in local communities around the country,” said Democrat Anna Eshoo, that party’s ranking member on the committee as quoted by The Hill newspaper.

But as The Hill noted, the defense did include at least one Republican.

“I don’t really understand how any of my colleagues can argue that providing better, faster Internet and more digital literacy training to underserved and unserved areas of this country is something we should criticize,” said Republican Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania.

Still, the Hill headline captured the overwhelming nature of the hearing:

“Republicans blast ‘wasteful’ Internet stimulus program”

Unfortunately, these days there is little bipartisan consensus about anything, regardless of a program’s benefits – or faults.

Is some criticism justified?

Has there ever been a federal or state program that hasn’t been abused?

Citizens Against Public Waste noted in a press release:

“As of December, 2012, the Recovery.gov website showed that of the 844 grant awards and contracts totaling $4.5 billion issued by the NTIA, only 26 have been completed, 192 are less than 50 percent complete, 623 are more than 50 percent complete and three have not yet started. RUS has given out 227 loans, grants, and contracts totaling $1.2 billion. From these awards, 15 projects have been completed, 110 are less than 50 percent complete, 69 are more than 50 percent complete, and 33 have not yet started. All of the stimulus-funded broadband projects were given a deadline for completion of September 30, 2013.”

And some in the private sector have cried foul – among them Michael Smith, president of Charlotte-based FairPoint Communication’s Vermont operations.

Smith testified that “millions in federal dollars for overbuild throughout New England that serve to ‘create a publicly financed competitor aimed at putting FairPoint and other private providers at a competitive disadvantage,'” the Citizens noted in a press release.

Broadcast & Cable also pointed out private sector concerns:

“Cable operators’ principal concern with the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) subsidies and grants/loans, which are overseen by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities Service, is that they are being used to subsidize overbuilds to existing broadband service, a point the Republican staffers make in teeing up the hearing. ‘[M]any carriers have complained that awardees have used BTOP and BIP grants and loans to overbuild existing systems rather than extend service to unserved areas,’ they wrote.”

If that is indeed the case, then inquiries are certainly necessary.

There should be no fraud or abuse; priorities of projects need to be met as stipulated by the contracts providers signed.

However, if millions of Americans gain access to broadband that the private sector said it could not justify the investment required to do so, then who really loses?

Further discussion about the merits of BTOP and BIP should go on to find out what the real problems are with the program.

Terminate projects that aren’t delivering as promised.

But support those that are striving to serve the public good.

Would that really be an unsolvable problem?

Unfortunately, in the Washington of today, the answer is “Yes.”