By Lucretia Hughes Klucken
Washington – Former Vice President Kamala Harris recently returned to social media to criticize President Donald Trump’s business record, claiming he was handed $400 million and later filed for bankruptcy six times.
Perhaps Harris hoped Americans had forgotten her own record.
They have not.
When Harris was vice president, President Joe Biden placed her at the forefront of the administration’s effort to expand high-speed internet access across rural and underserved America. The centerpiece of that effort was the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, commonly known as BEAD.
Congress created the program through the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The money was intended to help states and territories bring reliable internet service to millions of homes and businesses that remained unserved or underserved.
Harris told Americans the administration could bring broadband to rural communities. She traveled the country, appeared at promotional events and celebrated the enormous amount of taxpayer money committed to the effort.
Then the federal bureaucracy took over.
By September 2024, more than three years after Harris was assigned to help lead the administration’s broadband push, the BEAD program had not connected a single home or business to the internet.
Not one.
Nine Republican senators confronted Harris over the delays, arguing that the program had become trapped under layers of federal requirements involving labor, climate policies, affordability rules, mapping disputes and government approval processes.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration defended the timetable, saying states had to complete extensive planning, mapping and public-comment requirements before construction could begin.
That explanation may describe the bureaucracy, but it does not excuse the result.
Families without dependable internet could not use a federal planning document to complete their children’s homework. Rural businesses could not process orders through a government challenge period. Patients needing telehealth appointments could not connect through another round of agency approvals.
Americans were promised broadband. What they received were press releases, federal forms and years of waiting.
To be accurate, the entire $42.45 billion was not placed in Harris’ personal control, nor was all of it spent and lost. The program was administered through the Commerce Department and implemented by states and territories. By 2026, some states had received approval for projects, awarded funding and moved toward deployment.
But that does not erase the failure of the Biden-Harris administration to deliver timely results after making enormous promises.
Harris wants to lecture Trump about inherited money and bankruptcies. She should first explain what her administration accomplished with the money entrusted to it by American taxpayers.
There is also important context behind her attack on Trump.
Trump’s six bankruptcies involved business entities, primarily casino and hotel operations. He did not file for personal bankruptcy six times. Corporate bankruptcies are not something to celebrate, but they are a recognized legal process used by companies to restructure debt while attempting to remain in business.
Harris may condemn those decisions, and voters may judge Trump’s business record for themselves. But there is a significant difference between risking private investment in a business and overseeing billions of dollars collected from taxpayers.
When a private company fails, owners, lenders and investors absorb the consequences.
When government fails, American families pay the bill.
That is why the response circulating beneath Harris’ post struck such a nerve: “I don’t care if Trump lost his own money. You lost mine.”
The statement is not a complete description of the BEAD program’s finances, but it captures the frustration millions of Americans feel when politicians attack private-sector failures while refusing to accept responsibility for government incompetence.
Harris spent four years standing beside an administration that produced historic inflation, an overwhelmed southern border, a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and a federal government that repeatedly spent more while delivering less.
She was not a helpless observer. She was the vice president of the United States.
She was given high-profile responsibilities and a national platform. Yet whenever one of those assignments produced criticism, Harris and her defenders insisted she was never truly responsible for the outcome.
They wanted the applause associated with leadership without accepting the accountability that leadership requires.
That is not how responsibility works.
If Harris wants credit for announcing broadband investments, she must also answer for the delays. If she wants credit for being part of the Biden administration, she must defend its record. If she wants to criticize how someone else handled money, she should explain how effectively her administration handled ours.
Public service is not measured by the size of the announcement. It is measured by the outcome.
How many homes were connected? How quickly did construction begin? How much money reached actual infrastructure? How many rural families received the service they were promised?
Those are the questions Harris should answer before delivering another social media lecture about financial failure.
The American people are tired of politicians measuring success by how much money they allocate instead of what that money accomplishes. Spending $42 billion is not an achievement. Connecting Americans to reliable internet is the achievement.
Harris may hope a carefully written social media post will make voters forget the record of the Biden-Harris administration.
But taxpayers remember the promises.
Rural Americans remember the waiting.
And before Kamala Harris questions what Donald Trump accomplished with his money, she should answer for what she failed to accomplish with ours.
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