-By Warner Todd Huston
A new advertising campaign meant to save the reputation of the much-derided “Obamaphone” is underway.
Some of you may recall the 2012 video of that wacky woman ebullient that President Obama was giving out free “Obamaphones” to minorities and that, she said, is why we should all vote for him?
Well, since then the real program this woman was babbling about has come under fire.
Tracfone, one of the companies that gets hundreds of millions from the federal government and phone companies to run the program, is now launching an advertisement campaign to help protect the program.
The adverts try to inform America that the program is a good thing saying that the impact on the budget is zero, and somewhat misleadingly claiming that it was all started under President Ronald Reagan.
Now, it is true that the Lifeline program was started during Reagan’s years in office. But the current program has been greatly expanded and barely resembles that of the Reagan era.
The original purpose of the program was to help very low income people–especially those in rural areas where phone service didn’t then reach–get basic phone service for emergency reasons. So that they could call for police or for health services.
It wasn’t envisioned as a program that would give free phone service to a wide swath of America.
Rep. Tim Griffin (R-AR) is one elected official that is trying to reign in the program back to its original purposes. As Griffin explains it:
It’s a government-run, taxpayer-funded program that’s running wild and costing more and more. The evidence is stacking up: dead people are receiving free cell phones in the mail, eligible and ineligible individuals are obtaining more than one, and electronic kiosks have been stationed in convenience stores to spread the word about this “free” opportunity. The truth is, though, that taxpayers are footing the bill. The program is called Lifeline, but in reality it’s turned into Uncle Sam’s Unlimited Plan. My bill returns the Lifeline program back to its original structure by ending federal subsidies for free cell phone services. This growing government cell phone program is costing American consumers and taxpayers, and my bill puts an end to it.
Whatever the case is about this program, the fact is it is a typical federal program in that it was created for a very narrow purpose but as each Congressional session passed was grown exponentially to become just another federal behemoth.
All these sort of programs should be ended.
In a closing note, amusingly, the same woman who was so excited about voting for Obama has since denounced Obama as a liar.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, MrConservative.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.