“Obama phones”: Right wing’s latest bogus obsession

[DonViejo]

A Reagan-era policy is the latest bogus attack the right can't let go

BY JILLIAN RAYFIELD

Why are Republicans looking to scale back Lifeline, a Reagan-era policy that provides discounts to low-income phone users? Because the policy, referred to as “Obama phones” by conservatives, has had the bad luck of being distorted as the Obama administration’s policy of handing out free phones to welfare recipients — a claim that was boosted by a racially charged video that went viral.

This month, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on the policy. “The program has nearly tripled in size from $800 million in 2009 to $2.2 billion per year in 2012,” Republicans on the committee wrote in March. “American taxpayers — and we as their elected representatives — need to know how much of this growth is because of waste, fraud and abuse.”

Lifeline began during the Reagan administration, and was expanded during George W. Bush’s presidency to include cellphone service. It’s funded by phone bill fees that most people pay — not, as some conspiracy theorists believe, by taxes. As the Washington Post reports:

In Obama’s first term, amid evidence of widespread fraud, the Federal Communications Commission moved to crack down on the program, saving what it predicts will be $400 million this year, on top of $214 million in 2012

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more:

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/10/why_is_the_right_so_worked_up_about_obama_phones/

[Drale]

1. How about we focus on getting people good paying jobs

so they can afford to pay for their own phones and don't need this program?

[darkangel218]

2. Ive been laughing my butt for months over the Obama phone thing!

How the fuck can they be.so stupid?? They believe anything King Limpaugh tells them!

Pretty pathetic.

[tokenlib]

3. I run into recipients ALL THE TIME who also call them "Obama phones"..

..honestly I never knew it went back to the time of Reagan.

[Mopar151]

4. Facts are irrevalent, and lies from someone they beleive in are better than truth.

Many of these goobers are incapable of solving an actual problem using facts or deductive logic. Science is a tool of the devil, or those damm libburlls.

[BainsBane]

5. Right wingers have been going on about that for ages

Though I never knew where it came from until now.

You can always count on the GOP to make the biggest fuss over programs that cost taxpayers the least.