Whitmer’s internet program costs taxpayers $238M to connect 71,500 — but Elon Musk’s Starlink can do it faster for $43M

From The Mid­west­ern­er:

Gov. Gretchen Whit­mer and offi­cials with her Depart­ment of Labor and Eco­nom­ic Oppor­tu­ni­ty are laud­ing the state’s inter­net pro­gram, despite data that shows it costs tax­pay­ers far more than it needs to.

The pro­gram is fund­ed through the fed­er­al government’s Coro­n­avirus Cap­i­tal Fund Invest­ment project, at a cost of $6,377 per con­nec­tion – $3,329 from Michi­gan tax­pay­ers and the rest in match­ing funds, Michi­gan Capi­tol Con­fi­den­tial reports.

[…] The cost to con­nect to Star­link is about $599 in upfront fees. In review­ing the Star­link web­site, Cap­Con found oth­er prices list­ed, includ­ing $349 and $249, sug­gest­ing the com­pa­ny offers dif­fer­ent pric­ing to cus­tomers depend­ing on how they approach the web­site.

Read the rest at The Mid­west­ern­er.