It was one of Newt Gingrich’s more controversial ideas. They get touted as the equivalent of the older lifeline phones. And they CAN serve that way, but faceless welfare programs have a way of waving bye-bye to accountability and hello to fraud and laziness. I don’t know if Tracfone would be willing to distribute through, say, the Salvation Army, though. There might not be enough volume to justify it to them.
Saw a chart several days ago showing how welfare has grown to $700 billion dollars per year. I may be way off base (seriously doubt it), but we should not be looking for new things to hand out free.
We need to gut welfare to the bone. There is presently very little incentive for folks to go out and look for work.