Spending Off the Hook: Free Phones Costing Taxpayers $2.1 Billion Per Year

Where is this going to stop, America???  We can’t keep this up much longer….

h/t Brietbart:

You’re probably familiar with the food stamp program which grew from $35 billion in 2008 to $75 billion last year. But did you know that getting food stamps also makes you eligible for a free government cell phone?

A program called Lifeline provides free phones and free monthly minutes to anyone on food stamps, WIC, Medicaid, Head Start, and several other government programs. And just like food stamps, Lifeline (aka “phone stamps”) has been growing by leaps and bounds since 2008, at significant cost to taxpayers.

Lifeline was started in the mid-’80s to reduce the cost of phone service to rural and needy customers. The program’s costs are covered by a tax included on every monthly phone bill called the Universal Service Charge. The program eventually grew to include discounted cell service but took off in 2009, partly because TracFone announced a new program whereby eligible individuals could get a free phone and free monthly minutes. As a result, participation in the program (and costs) skyrocketed:

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Detroit Group Tells Welfare Recipients to Hijack Homes (via Breitbart.com)

Sad state of affairs…unemployment is at 18%, HS drop-out rates are jaw-dropping, and crime is on the rise as police forces are cut.  Yet, Detroit will continue to vote in liberal Democrat mayors, as they have for the past 50 years, and will most assuredly still vote for Obama in November.

 

The Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO), headed by Maureen Taylor, has been telling Detroit welfare recipients to occupy foreclosed homes around the city. “You can’t imagine,” Taylor told WWJ in Detroit, “when we get to work at 9 and 10 in the morning, there are 20 to 30 people in the hallway talking about ‘I don’t have any more money, my rent is due’ – three or four months behind – what can I do? And its unreal, because we don’t have answers except to say, ‘here’s a list of houses that we have intercepted that have been repossessed by banks, pick one and move in.’” To boot these trespassers out of the homes, banks are forced to take MWRO to court.

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