Obamaphone Giveaway: BELIEVE! (pics.)

SOCAL (photos) | Dec 25 2016 | Golux

[theBuckwheat]

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Later, the FCC introduced the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which proposed the Universal Service Fund requiring all providers of telecommunications services to contribute to a fund ...
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The author is either careless with words or trying to slide an essential fact past the reader. The USF is NOT a way for providers to “contribute”, it is a TAX on all users that they MUST pay. Only in socialist-speak is a tax a contribution.

[Chewbarkah]

Of course the hpones and service are not FREE although the government pays NOTHING for this welfare program. It is funded by phone service paying customers, in what an illegal tax collection and spending scheme. If it wants to defend this income redistribution program, Congress needs to enact laws to pay for it from legally collected taxes and have government agencies administrate the handouts.

[Neidermeyer]

no imcoming calls , outbound only to emergency services.

[FreedomStar3028]

I was pointing out the fact that it has really nothing to do with Obama. But it has been labelled “Obamaphone.”

[SauronOfMordor]

The official pupose of giving phone service is to allow them to apply for jobs and get call-backs from employers.

[ridesthemiles]

I like that idea. They are getting phones & the use of them with Taxpayer money,. I refuse to have a cell phone. Didn’t need one for most of my life & don’t need one now. The idea that just because someone is calling me that it is an emergency & that I need to answer immediately is a joke. People tell me—you should be out driving without a cell phone. I have driven over one million miles without one & I did OK.

I know people who got those phones & they just spend more money on something they shouldn’t buy in the first place-—like a cigarette habit that is costing one person over $700 a month. She refuses to do the math....I won’t speak to her any more.

[bgill]

Here’s something interesting on that Chicago community organizer. Can’t see that he did much for the local communities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-1-1 - The 911 emergency call system started in 1968. As late as 1989, at least 28 Chicago suburbs still lacked 9-1-1 service.

[bgill]

Why pay a quarter when you can make the call for free.

[Neidermeyer]

The official pupose of giving phone service is to allow them to apply for jobs and get call-backs from employers.
************
Originally it’s purpose was to allow contact with emergency services.. obviously the scope was expanded ... we just need to abolish it as small minute phone plans are available for a very low price now... or once again make it landline service based.

[Neidermeyer]

That vendor is obstructing ADA mandated access by placing his sales counter in the middle of a path at the end of the ramp ,, should have called a lawyer after collecting his contact information.

[rlmorel]

Your post at #6 is misleading, perhaps unintentionally, freedomstar3028.

First, this program "started by Reagan" had nothing to do with cell phones, and was fully taxpayer supported (for good or bad). It was meant to help people who couldn't afford it pay for a landline, and was intended (note the use of the word 'intended' to see just how any "well intentioned" government program ends up) for people who needed a phone for emergency or medical needs in rural areas. And it was nearly completely unknown to anyone. Secondly, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 took the majority of the funding out of the taxpayer realm and placed it squarely in the domain of MANDATORY government fees to be paid by the carriers providing phone services.

And to nobody's surprise, that showed up on a new line item fee on OUR phone bills titled "USF Fee" I pay about six or seven dollars a month total on that "non-tax" thing as all liberals like to refer to it. It isn't a tax. But I don't have any choice whether to pay it or not. And that money end up being disbursed by a "non-profit" created by the government. So, the government, under BILL CLINTON, not Ronald Reagan, made the decision to turn Verizon and AT&T into government tax collectors.

Gee, who's really the fascists here applying the label that the liberals like to paint all conservatives with?

This is, in effect a tax, but what liberals. their useful idiots (including some here on FR) the government, FCC, and USAC (A "non-profit" created by government to manage the funds) trumpet from the rooftops is that IT IS NOT A TAX! THERE IS NO TAX REVENUE ALLOCATED TOWARDS FREE PHONES! And a lot of people, reading articles about this, buy into it. Hey, I am paying a mandatory fee, disbursed by the government, but...it isn't a tax. Got it. That is about as honest as saying Obamacare isn't a tax.

Which is completely typical. You know how much money is being spent on these ostensibly "non-taxpayer funded" programs? Any guesses?

$10 billion dollars a year. Gee, at least with this, we can say we aren't borrowing the money from countries that HATE us and are paying interest on it. It comes straight and willingly from our own citizen's wallets. But not to be left out, we still get to borrow money to pay for the part of this with about $2 billion that still comes in through traditional taxpayers in the pre-1996 model. Gee, we didn't really think THAT was going to go away, did we?

Which brings me to the last point: Who was doing the advertising for this free telephone cash cow thingie? Reagan? Nope. HW Bush? Nope. Clinton? Yep, and probably continued under Bush due to the headless nature of government bureaucracy, but the Bush Administration might likely have trumpeted it too the same way they trumpeted the stupid "No Child Left Behind" endeavor.

But the biggest push in advertising for this public cash freebie came after GW Bush left office, and that is no surprise. The Obama Administration views any redistribution of wealth as a good thing (which is exactly what the Lifeline Program is) and under their Alinskyite guidelines, they are pushing for everyone who is (or isn't) eligible to get on the government teat.

And sure...the carriers probably get federal funding as well disbursed to them if they are a provider of these "public" services, which is ostensibly used to expand their networks. That is how it is justified by liberals, and some conservatives.

[rlmorel]

Exactly. See my post at #31. It was originally meant to help people with medical issues and emergency issues in rural areas to use the phone network.

Sounds kind of...reasonable.

And then, like any well intentioned, government administered free money, it grew like a cancer, created by the reprehensible FDR’s big government administration, having a new head bolted on in 1985, and replaced again in 2005, and going viral on steroids under the Obama Administration.

[FreedomStar3028]

It’s not misleading. It’s fact. The bias of the author is heavy and apparent, but otherwise factual.

The only reason I posted it because I’m tired of people calling it Obamaphones.

The legislation that makes service providers pay into has nothing to do with Obama.

[golux]

LOL! I was trying to shoot quickly without being noticed... And no it wasn't a LEICAR3 w/Zeiss fixed 400mm f2.3 EKT64iso a la beloved SWAMPSNIPER!

[rlmorel]

The landline limitation is gone for good, they are busy throwing the dirt on it, and engaging in a D-Day like push to have this expanded to include cable and Internet access for those who "can't afford it".

It is redistribution of wealth, plain and simple.

There are many of us who don't see a big of a problem in giving people who need help access to basic foodstuffs such as flour, milk, etc. but we feel our blood pressure go up when we go into a store (as I did near me, where I took this picture):

I see this telecommunication BS in exactly the same light. I wouldn't have as much of a problem with helping elderly people on a fixed income who can't pay for their meds, heat, and telephone to meet their landline expenses for a variety of purposes.

Where I do have a problem is where this expands into cell phones with texting and data plans, cable access, and Internet access, because it is "just, right, and fair" (from the FCC's own statement about the Lifeline Program, which made me want to puke)

[rlmorel]

It is a liberal Democrat construct developed, enhanced and advertised vigorously beginning in 2009 .

In the graphic below, look at the increase in the amount spent on this between 2005 where it had been and was around 9 billion a year, then JUST COINCIDENTALLY in 2009 began to increase to double that amount. (This is the same as payouts even though it says "USF Contribution Rates" because these are a direct passthrough in fees to paying customers like me, and I presume, you.

You want to put the blame for this on Reagan and Bush, and (like everything that happens under an administration) they aren't blameless, but calling these Obamaphones makes a lot more factual sense than calling them "Rooseveltphones", "Reaganphones" or even "Bushphones".

Otherwise, how do you explain a rough doubling of payouts since the day Obama took office?

[FreedomStar3028]

Reagan Bush and Clinton led the foundation.

Makes zero sense to call them obamaphones.

[rlmorel]

Then why the increase in 2009? You do understand the Cloward-Piven influence on Barack Obama (and many similarly-minded liberals?) You can fault anyone for participating in the creation of an explosive device back to and including Nobel, but whether it explodes and kills people or not is the responsibility of a person or group who make the decision to do so.

It is Obama and liberals who have made this explode, not Reagan or Bush.

[Neidermeyer]

Lobster 100 years ago was so plentiful it was a food of the poor... Boston and the state of Massachusetts have a law on the books limiting the number of times each week orphans , schoolchildren and prisoners can be fed lobster.

http://gizmodo.com/lobsters-were-once-only-fed-to-poor-people-and-prisoner-1612356919

[rlmorel]

Of course, there was a time when fish was a food of the poor as well...THAT sure isn’t true anymore!