Moron. Obviously you can't read. Obama wasn't president in 2005.
This day in age, a basic cell phone--and that's all they are--makes sense as a landline substitute if there's going to be a program like this.
The program isn't paid for through income taxes but via Universal Service fees paid by people who choose to buy phone service. Under law and TOS only one person her household can have one of these phones. If there are people committing fraud, find them and charge them. Maybe call in a drone strike. /s
Obama greatly expanded the program so that anybody who receives food stamps, supplemental nutrition assistance, Medicaid, SSI, Child Health Insurance Plan, school lunches, low-income energy assistance, Section 8 Public Housing, or lives on a reservation gets a free phone with free minutes. Free to them anyway, but everybody else who has a phone has to pay for it, dumbass.
And when the hell did I say it was paid for by income taxes?!
However, I did always wonder who the freaking morons are that fall for it when the government calls a tax a "fee" as if there's any difference. Now I know, it's you.
"Der... it's not a tax, it's a fee!"
What a goober you are. "Der... if you don't want to buy the whole ghetto a phone, you don't have to buy a phone for yourself!"
You might just be the dumbest mf on the internet.