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Yes, this is a concept I saw myself struggling to explain to children. I never thought I would have so much trouble with adults. When the government does something, its not the market.
title
license
mandate
fee
fine
money manipulation
See any taxes?
All move money from either to da guberment or from one ( connected) party to another. The gand daddy of them all of course is land title. Its da guberments license to collect your own taxes.
When government mandates a third party collect money on their behalf it's "not a tax".
People are so delusional and so gullible NOT to see it's a tax.
You think this is bad, which it is, I know a couple of people that tried to cancel their food stamps and welfare money because they got a job. After 4 attempts to cancel, they still get them.....
i see this as an attack against the poor by the op, yet she refuses to go after whites who are the majority of the takers.
Well neither the phone companies nor the FCC have released any stats on Lifeline subscribers.
How did you come up with "majority are White" ?
Racist much ?
If you are poor, like the 59% that submitted proof then your phone/plan were not canceled.
The rest..assume they are scammers that cannot prove they are poor or only have one subscription per household.
I'm not buying your crap about how I'm attacking the poor. Go peddle that sob story on someone else.
The pool of eligibles is fluid and constantly changing. I think a lot of the 41% were once eligible and then lost eligibility (got a job, etc). Obviously there was no tracking to drop those who became ineligible.
No there isn't when that mandated fee is put forward by the government.
Too bad that didn't go to the supreme court because it would have ended up like the Obamacare "penalty" that turned out to be a tax so it could be upheld.
When it's government mandated and controlled it doesn't matter who collects it because it goes right to the government. A wolf in sheep's clothing is still a wolf and a rose by any other name is still a rose.
Thanks for bringing this up they can call it what they want but it is still a tax. I have tried to get out of it and I was told if I did not want to pay I would not get a phone.
41% is no chump change. 41% of the 6 million lifeline subscribers cannot/have not provided the FCC with eligibility requirements. And the FCC initially thought a mere 15% were scamming the program.
The top phone companies providing lifeline plans have refused to give the number of plans they dropped because of this.
The FCC finally cracked down last year and demanded that subscribers provide verification of eligibility or they would be dropped.
Lifeline cost $800 million in 2008 and soared to $2 billion in 2012.
41% is more than a "few cheaters" ..that's so close to half that it should shock people.
And the FCC instituted this with "self certify" requiring no documentation.
Just sign up and check a box...no one will verify your eligibility and no one will turn you down.
They found DEAD PEOPLE with phone plans. You want to talk about corrupt programs then look no further than our own social welfare programs.
Millions Improperly Claimed U.S. Phone Subsidies - WSJ.com
The U.S. government spent about $2.2 billion last year to provide phones to low-income Americans, but a Wall Street Journal review of the program shows that a large number of those who received the phones haven't proved they are eligible to receive them.
..
Suspecting that many of the new subscribers were ineligible, the Federal Communications Commission tightened the rules last year and required carriers to verify that existing subscribers were eligible. The agency estimated 15% of users would be weeded out, but far more were dropped.
A review of five top recipients of Lifeline support conducted by the FCC for the Journal showed that 41% of their more than six million subscribers either couldn't demonstrate their eligibility or didn't respond to requests for certification.
..
The FCC until last year allowed consumers to self-certify, without requiring documentation, that they met federal poverty guidelines. Subscribers didn't have to recertify once they were enrolled in the program, and there were few checks on whether households signed up for more than one cellphone.
I am the OP of this thread and I intentionally left out politics of D vs R and never once mentioned "Obamaphone" either.
I know when the program started.
I also pointed out that it switched to cell phones in 2008 but didn't change the rules under which one could get a phone. The program worked when it was landline because you couldn't get more than one installed. But cell phones are a different story and the FCC didn't change their rules and it got out of hand..cost tripled to over $2 billion in 4 years.
As they say..better late than never as we should see that cost go down to $1 billion or under now that they got called on it and reformed their qualification process.
And this is a good thing because the FCC is moving to providing smart phones and data service next (they already have pilot programs testing this). Imagine the costs if they continued with this 'self-certify' process ?
You know..it was landline phones. They went cellphone in 2008 and didn't revamp the program to deal with cellphones.
How many multiple landline phones do you think they could get for free ?
Pretty hard to scam that program since the line/phone are fixed and couldn't be hidden if you wanted 5 more lines installed.
The government just doesn't care because it's not their money and they'll just ask for more money to cover increasing costs. They have no incentive to watch costs. The way government funding works is that if you don't use it this year you won't get it next year.
The cellphones started in 2005 and it is either or, but not both. One discount per household.
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