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Because no one created a Reaganphone website.
There is an obamaphone web site though.
The switch to cellphones is what did it.
Everyone and their brother and dog signed up with multiple companies for multiple phones.
The program exploded to $2 billion per year.
Thankfully pressure got the FCC to do an audit and 41% of those subscribers got dropped because they didn't qualify for those free phones. That's nearly $1 billion in savings.
The checks and balances were not in place to prevent fraud.
If they didn't move to cellphones in 2009 and stuck with landlines we wouldn't have had this issue.
I don't think the internet was really big in the mid 80's, but I could be wrong. Anyone in here have Wifi in 1984?
Every person on welfare prior to Obama was truly in need, and after the election it changed??
This has nothing to do with Welfare, under Obama the program has drastically increased in size and spending. Did millions of people across the country suddenly become needy the day after Obama was elected? Oh wait, don't answer that.
I think the time to whine about them would have been in 1985, when it was enacted under Reagan.
30 years too late. Their fake outrage is duly noted.
Reagan is dead.
Bush is not the President.
The waste is occurring TODAY, and we can't do anything about the last 30 years. But that is no excuse to sit around and ignore the waste just because a Republican started it and expanded it. Also, I couldn't vote 30 years ago, as a matter of fact I could barely talk.
The waste is occurring TODAY, and we can't do anything about the last 30 years. But that is no excuse to sit around and ignore the waste just because a Republican started it and expanded it. Also, I couldn't vote 30 years ago, as a matter of fact I could barely talk.
I think the time to whine about them would have been in 1985, when it was enacted under Reagan.
30 years too late. Their fake outrage is duly noted.
I think Democrats and Liberals make a mistake when they think conservatives are interested in public policy.
conservatives care about who is benefitting from a government program.
So in this regard the program was originally created to help rural poor white people, a group of Americans that conservatives believe to Real Americans, hard working, trustworthy, etc. To conservatives people like that deserve the help and it is no problem for the government to help.
Now conservatives perceive that poor urban mostly blacks are benefitting from the program, so they have a problem with it.
It really is that simple. Here is a short history of the program and how it works. The program has zero to do with President Obama. Remember this phone supplies one hour of talk per month. 60minutes it is not administered by the government per se.
How It Works
SafeLink Wireless, the program mentioned in the e-mail, does indeed offer a cell phone, about one hour’s worth of calling time per month, and other wireless services like voice mail to eligible low-income households. Applicants have to apply and prove that they are either receiving certain types of government benefits, such as Medicaid, or have household incomes at or below 135 percent of the poverty line. Using 2009 poverty guidelines, that’s $14,620 for an individual and a little under $30,000 for a family of four, with slightly higher amounts for Alaska and Hawaii.
SafeLink is run by a subsidiary of América Móvil, the world’s fourth largest wireless company in terms of subscribers, but it is not paid for directly by the company. Nor is it paid for with "tax payer money," as the e-mail claims. Rather, it is funded through the Universal Service Fund, which is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company, an independent, not-for-profit corporation set up by the Federal Communications Commission. The USF is sustained by contributions from telecommunications companies such as "long distance companies, local telephone companies, wireless telephone companies, paging companies, and payphone providers." The companies often charge customers to fund their contributions in the form of a universal service fee you might see on your monthly phone bill. The fund is then parceled out to companies, such as América Móvil, that create programs, such as SafeLink, to provide telecommunications service to rural areas and low-income households.
History
The SafeLink program has actually been offering cell phones to low-income households in some states since 2008, not beginning "earlier this year," as the e-mail claims. But the program is rooted in a deeper history.
When phone lines were first laid out in the late 19th century, they were not always inter-operable. That is to say the phone service created by one company to serve one town may not have been compatible with the phone service of another company serving a different town nearby. The telecom companies themselves saw the folly in this arrangement, and so in 1913, AT&T committed itself to resolving interconnection problems as part of the "Kingsbury Commitment."
That common goal of universal service became a goal of universal access to service when Congress passed The Telecommunications Act of 1934. The act created the FCC and also included in its preamble a promise "to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.” There was a fear, expressed by telecom companies themselves, that market forces alone might encourage companies to pass on providing service to hard-to-reach places. This would both hurt the people who wouldn’t have service as well as existing customers who wouldn’t be able to reach them. So the new FCC was tasked with promoting this principle of "universal service."
This informal practice was codified when the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) was created as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act to "ensure all Americans, including low-income consumers and those who live in rural, insular, high cost areas, shall have affordable service and [to] help to connect eligible schools, libraries, and rural health care providers to the global telecommunications network." The USAC includes four programs to serve rural areas, high cost areas, rural health care providers, and schools and libraries. Since 1997, USAC has provided discounted land line service to low-income individuals. (A more limited program to offer assistance to low-income individuals was created a decade earlier; the telecommunications act expanded and formalized it.) According to Eric Iversen, USAC director of external relations, the Universal Service Fund more recently began funding programs that provide wireless service, such as the pre-paid cellular SafeLink program mentioned in the chain e-mail.
The president has no direct impact on the program, and one could hardly call these devices "Obama Phones," as the e-mail author does. This specific program, SafeLink, started under President George Bush, with grants from an independent company created under President Bill Clinton, which was a legacy of an act passed under President Franklin Roosevelt, which was influenced by an agreement reached between telecommunications companies and the administration of President Woodrow Wilson.
Do you have the brain capacity to understand that most people who have a problem with "Obamaphones" are upset about the outrageous amount of fraud found in the system?
What amount of fraud was found in the gov. sponsored hard phone lines under Reagan? You don't know, you don't care because that doesn't fit your agenda. Next you'll throw our a race card right?
Do you have the brain capacity to understand that most people who have a problem with "Obamaphones" are upset about the outrageous amount of fraud found in the system?
What amount of fraud was found in the gov. sponsored hard phone lines under Reagan? You don't know, you don't care because that doesn't fit your agenda. Next you'll throw our a race card right?
What is about landlines phones that make it immune to fraud? There was no welfare fraud during the Reagan years? Reagan would disagree.
I don't think the internet was really big in the mid 80's, but I could be wrong. Anyone in here have Wifi in 1984?
LOL...someone really did create an obamaphone.net
That's where the name came from..not conservatives hell bent on dissing the President.
Funny thing is that obamaphone.net cannot be traced back to a person or company.
And today you cannot get to obamaphone.net website..."server not responding".
If you put politics aside for a moment, some one/group went marketing this as "Obamaphone".
The Shady Ethics of the Obama Phone
But the really interesting question is: Who has been marketing this as the “Obama Phone”?
..
Visit ObamaPhone.net and here’s what you see:
It begins: “What exactly is the free Obama phone? The free OBama phone is a program that is meant to help the financially unstable who cannot afford access to a cell phone…”
..
So then we reach the question: Who funds the companies like FreeGovernmentCellPhones.net and ObamaPhone.net?
What was the amount of fraud under Reagan? You brought this up, you tell us about Reagan and this program.
No, you are the one that brought up fraud, not me. What was the amount of fraud during Reagan? I assume it was enough for Reagan to make it a focal point of his speeches.
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