What would Jesus do about extending the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP)? That may be the most important telecommunications policy question answered in 2024.
Let me explain.
Measured by a direct effect on the largest number of Americans, the ACP, which subsidizes broadband for nearly 23 million households, is the most important telecommunications policy whose fate is being debated as its funding soon runs out.
There is a strong economic case for extending ACP. The data indicate it will save the government money on services such as Medicaid, increase economic growth and reduce crime.
There’s also a strong political case for supporting an extension. Seventy-nine percent of Americans support an extension, joined by a broad spectrum of support from industry advocating with unions and progressive, community, and civil rights groups.
In terms of the future, continuing gaps in digital access and use will weaken our economy and society for generations to come. This has been clear at least since 2010, when the National Broadband Plan found that “the cost of this digital exclusion is large and growing.” In the decade ahead, which will see artificial intelligence transform jobs, education and healthcare, the cost will increase by an order of magnitude.
But none of those arguments may matter.
The political reality is this. ACP extension legislation already has 216 co-sponsors, including 21 Republicans. If the House were to vote on that legislation, it would pass.
The question is, will Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, allow a vote? One in three households in the district he represents are enrolled in the program (nearly 88,000 households total). He has not offered his view on the specifics but has implied that the economic and political data are largely irrelevant to him, as the source of his views on any issue can all be found in the Bible.
I can respect his focus on the scriptures. But it raises the question of what the Bible tells us about how to approach the ACP extension?
I am not a biblical scholar, though I have read the Old and New Testament multiple times. There are no references to broadband, but as the speaker and I would agree, biblical wisdom is found by looking at the deeper meaning of the lessons taught, not in specific references to a technology or situation that would not have existed when the scriptures were written.
It should surprise no one that none of those writings suggest that communities should act to increase the cost of healthcare for the poor, the cost of government, crime, or lower economic productivity.
On the other hand, it’s easy to find dozens of passages suggesting Moses, Jesus or others seeking to spread divine directives would advocate for the opposite, as well as advocating for providing basic necessities for those in difficult financial circumstances.
A full doctrinal investigation would take volumes, but we can distill it to this. In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus says that to “love your neighbor as yourself” is, after loving God, the most important commandment. As Jewish scholar Rabbi Hillel noted in his articulation of the Golden Rule, “The rest is commentary. Now go and study.” What does further study point to?
Leviticus 25:35 provides a concrete elaboration of the principle of loving your neighbor into action, mandating that “if any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them … so that they can continue to live among you.”
One finds a similar sentiment in Luke 14:12-14, where Jesus instructs his host, “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.”
Matthew 25:37-40 provides an analogous evocation, saying, “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
These passages lay the foundation for the Bible’s instruction to assist with basic necessities so that all can live among us in dignity, health and prosperity.
These are the moral sentiments Congress cited in creating the ACP. In adopting the broadband portions of the 2021 Infrastructure Bill, Congress found that “a broadband connection and digital literacy are increasingly critical to how individuals participate in the society, economy and civic institutions of the United States; and access healthcare and essential services, obtain education, and build careers.”
These moral sentiments are not unique. They underpin longstanding, popular policies related to food, housing, healthcare, education and other programs to assist those with limited means living among us.
Nor are such sentiments new. Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed them nearly a century ago when he discussed the change in the “moral climate” of the United States, stating, “We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern.”
His administration created programs that have spent tens of billions on rural electrification, utilities, lending and other rural economic development programs that continue to this day and have now expanded to include broadband.
One might argue that scriptures provide a guide to personal behavior, not policy. That is not an unreasonable view, but it would be odd for the speaker of the House, a Republican from Louisiana, to take that view, having stated that his policy views are rooted in the Bible. Further, if the biblical calls for acts of loving kindness are restricted to personal behavior, how would the speaker justify the many policies designed specifically for rural areas that arose from FDR’s sentiments? Does the speaker and his party want to undercut the moral foundation of such expenditures?
Again, I can make an economic argument for those policies, though the economic justification for ACP is stronger than the argument for many of those programs. Economic analysis leads me to being open to changes in the ACP that can increase its economic effectiveness.
If, however, the person with the sole power to enable or kill an ACP extension insists that the decision be made on biblical principles rather than economics, the answer remains the same; the speaker should allow a vote on the ACP extension bill.
