Obama to expand broadband Internet across U.S.

More than a year after Congress passed the economic stimulus package, President Barack Obama announced that $795 million of that money will go toward expanding Internet access across the country to provide jobs and improve communication.
 
Obama's plan, will allocate more than $1 billion for installing broadband Internet across the country.
 
The plan will create 66 infrastructure projects across the country and more than 5,000 temporary jobs, Obama said. It also will benefit more than 685,000 businesses, 900 health care facilities and 2,400 schools.
 
The money is part of $7.2 billion in the stimulus that was set aside to expand broadband Internet access.
 
While the president emphasized job creation in his Internet proposal, he also described new statistics on employment for June as the sixth straight month of job growth despite the phasing out of census jobs.
 
Economists, however, see the June jobs data as disappointing for their small increase in private-sector jobs and a larger-than-expected increase in discouraged jobless who dropped out of the job market. Total U.S. payrolls were down by 125,000 jobs in June, but the private sector expanded by 83,000 jobs.
 
The state that's slated to get the most money under the plan is Iowa, which will receive about $90 million (although it will share about $20 million of that with Missouri), almost double what the second-ranked state, Georgia, is to receive.
 
Obama highlighted how the broadband allocation will benefit education, the environment and doctor-patient communication.
 
The stimulus package, enacted in February 2009, allocated $787 billion to create jobs, increase cash flow and revitalize the economy amid the recession. Only three Republicans in Congress voted for the measure.