As I suspected.
Let’s take a quick look back at the actual origins of the Obama Phone program. You may be surprised to learn that it all began long before cell phones were invented.
In the 1980s, during the Reagan administration, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) created the Universal Access Initiative. The goal was to “promote the availability of quality services at just, reasonable and affordable rates for all consumers.” After years of study, they proposed what we now call the Obama Phone.
In the beginning, the Obama Phone offered subsidized phone service to Americans who were living at or below the poverty level. Please remember, this was in the early-to-mid-1980s, long before cell phones were invented, so this subsidy covered landlines only.
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 that would be used to increase nationwide access to advanced telecommunications services. The goal, according to the FCC, was to “advance the availability of such services to all consumers, including those in low income, rural, insular, and high-cost areas at rates that are reasonably comparable to those charged in urban areas.”
In other words, the FCC recognized that landlines were decreasing in importance as cell phones were increasing in use.
President Bill Clinton quickly signed the Telecommunications Act into law and President George Bush continued the program. President Barack Obama has followed in their footsteps, and there is widespread confidence that succeeding presidents will continue to support the Obama Phone program
So they’re Clinton-Bush-Obama phones!!! Both parties vying for the votes.
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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.
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.