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Posted on 02/09/2012 6:46:26 AM PST by C19fan
Last year, a federal program paid out $1.6 billion to cover free cell phones and the monthly bills of 12.5 million wireless accounts. The program, overseen by the FCC and intended to help low-income Americans, is popular for obvious reasons, with participation rising steeply since 2008, when the government paid $772 million for phones and monthly bills. But observers complain that the program suffers from poor oversight, in which phones go to people who don't qualify, and hundreds of thousands of those who do qualify have more than one phone.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
broadband internet is the next entitlement it looks like.
America cannot afford this crap!
So my question is, how do I go about sucking on the govt teet. It’s obvious that the “poor” qualify for pretty much everything up to and including new homes. I’m tired of fighting the tide and want my freebies too before we all go bankrupt.
So the Feds need We the People to support Verizon and ATT?
Yet when it was Cellular One and Telecomm and Cingulair nobody needed any taxpayer support.
yet again another dysfunctional American industry needing Federal life support...having used the regulatory club.. has crushed and squeezed out all competition that made the industry functional and healthy.
This is advertised regularly on tv in Miami Florida. Makes me angry, as I pay $100 a month for my cell phone.
As much as you have to blame the welfare queen moochers, you also have to blame the cell companies.
This is their dream program to sell their product to people who have no money and yet never have to worry about whether the bills get paid.
Crony Capitalism at its very worst.
Ahem—Washington isn’t footing the bill, I am!
Someone ought to alert the geniuses at Time of the truth....TAXPAYERS are paying cell phone bills, not “Washington”.
Someone ought to alert the geniuses at Time of the truth....TAXPAYERS are paying cell phone bills, not “Washington”.
“Washington Footing the Cell Phone Bill for Millions of Low Income Americans”
Brad Tuttle, the reputed author, or whoever wrote the title, doesn’t appear to have the vaguest notion that Washington doesn’t foot any bills.
The bills are footed by American workers, who have part of their incomes confiscated to send to people that don’t work.
It’s called buying votes with other peoples’ money, Washington-style, Mr. Tuttle
Why, that's awful nice of him to do that.
What? Oh, you mean the TAXPAYERS, people who actually earn a living, are paying for them! Different story!
the Treasury is continually plundered by the thieves in the district of corruption.
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I think that's what PO's the rest of us the most. They are buying their "wants" with money they obviously have that could be spent on their "needs".
But the rest of us, the RESPONSIBLE people, have to forego a lot of our "wants" in order to pay taxes in order to pay for these other people's "needs".
And further, I despise even more the "advocates" who push for these programs, not really out of any concern for the needy, but simply in order to feel good about themselves for their advocacy.
The commercials for this are all over the air here in Utah. It shows really nice people calling the doctor and calling in late for work or calling their grandkids. It makes me so mad! I have seen HOMELESS people who don’t have a pair of gloves but they have a cell-phone, and I doubt they are calling their grandkids.
Actually, this is one of those “unintended consequences” or more appropriately - careful what you wish for, you might get it.
I was working in the phone industry when the 1996 Telecom Act was being argued. The large companies (and some medium ones) were fighting government infusion! These small start-ups were telling the government that they could offer services to remote areas and “under-served” people IF the government would FORCE the large companies to lease them lines and services at a discounted rate.
The government decided to force larger established companies to offer services and lines at discounts to these off-shoots, etc... These off-shoots popped up EVERYWHERE! They were hoping that they could establish name and service recognition that would allow them to stem the rate changes when the GOVERNMENT FORCED PRICE DISCOUNTS ran-out.
What the government failed to realize - like usual - the free-market, i.e., PRICE, is the number one motivation for consumer loyalty. So, when the prices of these parasitic companies reached comparable rates of the name brands, people started dropping these off-shoots and they started dropping left and right! Of course, these little start-ups made HUGE money for the last 10 or 12 years, but now they are flying the coup with their government-forced profits!
So, what looks like the government helping and working with the large companies, ACTUALLY was FORCED on these companies by the government under the guise that it would help create local competition. All it did was drop the profits for the large companies for a few years, but ultimately these little companies could not compete with the large ones - PERIOD!
Stealing your money to buy phones for losers. Great! Just Great!
A couple weeks ago, Rush Limbaugh mentioned an article or the results of a recent study that found the welfare class has more disposable income than the middle class.
This is exactly why. We pay for their food, shelter, medical care, clothes, utilities, cell phones....
They pay for their Air Jordans, nice cars, acrylic nails.
What a crock of S*%t.
I pay 100 zops a year for my Tracfone....spend 99 bucks annually for additional airtime, and your minutes roll over and you get another year.
I've accumulated so much airtime - 66 hours worth - that I just got one of their smart phones so I can do the internet thing while on the road.
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