Wonder why your cell phone bill is so high, even if you don’t have or use all the bells and whistles on it?
Consider that part of your cell phone payment that goes to subsidizing free cell phones for the poor.
Advocates say poor need available free cell phones. Philadelphia Inquirer.
They’re paid for, in part, by charges on phone bills that the federal government allows carriers to levy. It’s a little-known collaboration between the federal government and phone carriers, devised by the Reagan administration 26 years ago.
The federal Lifeline program, begun in 1984, requires phone companies to discount the bills of poor people up to $10 a month.
The Federal Communications Commission established a subsidy for carriers so they could recover those costs. Money for that subsidy comes from all phone customers, who pay a charge of up to $2 per monthly bill.
Government Welfare: Cell Phones for the Poor. The Heritage Foundation. A little more detail how the program got its start and funding.
This particular program is covered by the federal Universal Service Fund. At first it received its money by essentially taxing telephone companies that provided long-distance service, with the money then being used to provide affordable rates for those living in less densely populated areas where phone service was more costly. However, in 1996, Congress voted to extend the use of this fund to subsidize low-income households and subsequently expanded the list of those required to pay into the fund to include: local telephone companies, wireless companies, paging services, and payphone providers. (Naturally, the cost for this fund is passed to the customer.) In 2008, the Federal Communications Commission began subsidizing cell phones for low-income households.
Funny that the cell phone companies who offer this are not taking the charitable money out of their own pocket, but are taking it out of yours, the paying cell phone customer.
“Oh, that’s the ‘Obama-phone,’ ” said Susan Lord, a leader of the conservative tea party movement in South Jersey. “It’s just another way to redistribute the wealth. The poor get helped, and the cost is passed on to working people, who get depressed.”
Socialism. Redistribution of wealth. That’s what then Senator Barack Obama said to “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher on the campaign trail. He wanted to redistribute wealth by increased taxes on the taxpayer. Video here. So perhaps that is why the Obama phone concept is not so far off.
But this fellow seems to bring up quite a valid concern.
Matthew Brouillette, president and chief executive officer of the conservative Commonwealth Foundation in Harrisburg, said his fear was that the free-phone program would be “subsidizing texting and sexting” among the poor.
Valid point. And just the same, the fact that no one is monitoring when to cut the subsidy off when someone’s income level rises above the cutoff 135% and above poverty level.
Another example of government sliding its hand into your pocketbook, and redistributing it as welfare, called “subsidies.”
See:
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