Nothing quite says dependency like "Obama phone". It's like the final hors d'oeuvre of the welfare gourmet's feast. I suppose someday someone will write the Epicurean's guide to welfare benefits and place the Obama phone at the top of the list. Obama and his allies are pretty modest about this program's success. Faux fact checker, Snopes.com does a cute do-se-do to the question. "The Obama administration created a program to provide free cell phones for welfare recipients." calling it partially true while noting it was created under another administration. And what administration was that? Snopes won't tell you but it was the Clinton administration.
From the days of World War II until the Reagan administration Americans paid a phone tax. The phone tax was finally abolished under Reagan only to be reimposed by the Clinton administration that claimed the money was need to provide internet access to Indian reservations. Eventually more good work for these tax dollars was found and a plan to give shut ins a land line was born. All went well, well as far as programs like this go until 2006 when the Congress decided to upgrade this to cell phone service. Under the Obama administration the program exploded until the Obama phone program reached a annual cost of $1.25 billion all of which must be borrowed. The standards for qualification are so loose that one hardly needs to game the system. Anyone enrolled in WIC or Medicaid is automatically qualified. There is even a web site, freegovernmentcellphones.net to sign up if one thinks he or she has fallen through the cracks. Fine you say, but what about the single mother with five kids who have texted through their month's 250 minutes? No problem. Just order another Obama phone. It's not like anyone is keeping score. They make great Christmas gifts or they can be sold to friends to supplement your food stamp income. Congressman Tim Griffin of Arkansas says 6 cell phones for one individual are not uncommon, 40 phones is the record. Congressman Griffin calls this the Uncle Sam's Unlimited Plan. Visit his site.
We areTHE RESISTANCE.
You mean Bush Phones
ReplyDeleteActually this is originally part of the Clinton initiative of 1996 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Fund which taxes all our phones to pay for this crap. It accelerated under Obama, as have all handout programs.
ReplyDeleteWRONG! It originated in 1984 under Reagan, was expanded under Clinton in '96 and went cellular under Bush in '08.
Deletehttp://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/cellphone.asp
Snopes answers this very clearly! No do se do!
Gotta love these TeaParty people who can't get any of their facts correct.
ReplyDeleteThe program was begun by the Republicans in the House as part of the Telecommunications Act.
The cost of the program is born by a fee charged to each and every phone line.
Without the program, many elderly, disabled, and poor individuals would not have access to a phone line and would, thus, be unable to obtain even basic police or fire protection. While that may fit in with the Republican plan to let 30% of Americans just DIE, it is not part of the American dream to all pull forward, together.
I believe I covered that in the above comment. It's a Clinton initiative, as stated. So don't give me that "can't get any of their facts correct" baloney. As usual, people like YOU see what you want.
ReplyDeleteYou know, when one million of the 11 and a half million people in Ohio own one of these things, even YOU would have to admit there might be some**abuse**.
These things always start out with good intentions. Then they balloon into monstrosities over which no one has control.
That's the problem.
Begun in 1984 under Reagan, expanded in 1996 under Clinton, expanded to cell phones in 2008 under Bush. So where does Obama come in? The facts of government overspending are bad enough without misleading people about it.
ReplyDeleteAMEN, Unknown! Now I see why Right Wingers sound so stupid when they try to debate!
Delete
DeleteDid it occur to you, oh, brilliant one, that there were no cell phones for all in 1984? That it was a land line LIFELINE for old people originally? That it accelerate, as all welfare programs, under your guy Obama, who loves to enslave Americans with free money that will completely crash our economy?
Watch the progression here, if you care to actually LEARN something other than your Leftist drivel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCqU8yarNpc&feature=player_embedded&list=PLBFB75A4E2BDC6DC7#!
Cost is up to $2 billion.
And, yeah, it's a tax that the phone company collects from everyone so yes, it's a tax.
And YOU, anonymous LEFT WINGER, need to go to school. Open your eyes and ears.
DeleteUp to 2.1$ billion under Obama. Accelerate 24 fold. One million of Ohio's 11 million people have them.
ReplyDeleteWhat about EXCESSIVE do you not understand?
What about TOO MUCH SPENDING do you not understand?
What about TRUTH do you not understand?
So how much does it cost the tax payers per individual phone? I understand the Obama phone gives you 1200 minutes. So for example if trac phone is the company that reaping in the money from this government contract then it would run anywhere from 159.00 - 199.00 per month per phone....
ReplyDeletehttps://www.tracfone.com/direct/Purchase?payGo=true&app=TRACFONE&lang=en
But if it were a straight talk service they could get unlimited minutes for about 45.00 per month. I suspect it is coasting the taxyers upwards to 200.00 a month per phone. This wasteful spending has to stop.
So I went to the link you provided to congressman Tim Griffins website. You should go there too. Scroll down to the section labeled facts. The facts he states are the same as what snopes wrote. Program started under Reagan, changed under Clinton, cellphones added under GW Bush. Since Bush destroyed our economy all social safety net programs have grown. You teaparty folks sure love to bend the facts to suit your needs.
ReplyDeleteBush did expand welfare programs, much to our detriment.
DeleteWhy is it extremist or bending facts to point out that our government is bankrupt? That "investing" in the future means mortgaging it for the kids who won't get any Social Security themselves.
If you don't work you should not have it or anything else.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't doubt that the cost of this program, like most other government programs, has been greatly inflated by waste, fraud and mismanagement. But on the other hand, military spending has been subjected to the same problems, and no one is arguing that we don't need national defense.
ReplyDeleteThe importance of subsidizing the cost of cell phones - especially to the unemployed - should be obvious to anyone, Republican or Democrat. Its extremely difficult to get a job without having a means for a prospective employer to get in touch with you, and these days, that means a cell phone. Personally, I've been helping an old, family friend who lost his job and went broke. The FIRST thing I did was provide him with a temporary cell phone - and he couldn't have gotten re-employed as quickly as he did without it.
I'm NOT suggesting that there aren't hundreds, if not thousands of freeloaders out there who are abusing this program - only that the logic behind the program is sound.
But listen to what you said...a TEMPORARY cell phone (which was very kind of you, btw). Does our government ever do anything temporarily? In fact, if you run through your minutes, you just call to get more.
DeleteAnd, yes, the military needs cuts too. I've heard horror stories. The amount of money this government wastes is breathtaking.
But, like anything, people justify new and more expenditures for just about anything that sounds good. You say it should be obvious, but what did people did before cell phones? Why, they made appointments, they called people on public phones or borrowed from relatives.
I had a friend say once that her daughter was living on welfare and it was barely enough to live on. I said, " But isn't that the point? It shouldn't be comfortable to have others support you!" at which point she agreed.
I had a family member who was on welfare years ago. They looked into everything someone did, like you weren't allowed to have a private phone line. You had to have a party line. I bet you don't even know what that was, do you?
The point was there was scrutiny, embarrassment and followup. We just don't have that nor could we. There are simply too many programs, too many handouts and too much streamlining of giving away freebies. It's easy to live off the public dole.
Thanks for your comments.