Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton called today for a national broadband system, calling the Internet necessary for economic growth.
"The nation that invented the Internet is now ranked about 25th in access to it," the New York senator said in a speech in Merrimack, New Hampshire. "In the 19th Century, we invested in railroads. In the 20th Century, we built the interstate highway system. In the 21st Century information economy we need to invest in our information infrastructure," she said.
Her program, dubbed "Connect America," would provide industry incentives to get Internet access to under served areas and to low-income Americans, as well as change the Federal Communication Commission's rules to more accurately measure Web access.
"I see this problem in New York. A lot of the utilities don't want to connect up our isolated, rural areas. And they also don't want particularly to go into our under served, poor, urban areas because there's so much money that can be made in Manhattan and our suburban areas," Clinton said.
Clinton also said she would seek to make permanent the research and experimentation tax credits that more than 15,000 companies have used since they began in 1981.
"We cannot rebuild a strong and prosperous middle class if we don't have a new source of new jobs," Clinton said. "Our country is a country of innovators. We're not acting like it right now, but we have all the potential to get into gear quickly."
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