{"id":32172,"date":"2012-09-28T06:06:58","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T10:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=32172"},"modified":"2012-09-28T06:06:58","modified_gmt":"2012-09-28T10:06:58","slug":"the-phone-lady-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=32172","title":{"rendered":"The phone lady thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, a couple of you sent us the video of the woman near Cleveland who told the interviewer that she was voting for Obama because he got her a free phone. I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ve seen the video, but here it is if you haven&#8217;t. You&#8217;ll want to turn your speakers down because she&#8217;s pretty enthusiastic about her phone;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tpAOwJvTOio\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Well, the Left of course, is quick to defend the free phone program. <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/election\/2012\/09\/27\/924011\/the-truth-about-the-obama-phone\/?mobile=nc\">Think Progress<\/a> blames Bush (of course) and then doubles down with the lie that the phones are provided without tax payer support;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Since 2009, there has been an urban myth that Obama created a program to provide free phones to low-income Americans at taxpayer expense. There is, in fact, a government program that will provide low-income people with a free or low cost cell phone. It was started in 2008 under George W. Bush.<\/p>\n<p>The idea of providing low-income individuals with subsidized phone service was originated in the Reagan administration following the break-up of AT&#038;T in 1984. (It was expanded and formalized by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.) The program is paid for by telecommunications companies through an independent non-profit, not through tax revenue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, the <a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/where-do-obama-phones-come-from\/article\/2509203#.UGVwclGbsoo\">Washington Examiner<\/a> takes a closer look at the program, and if it&#8217;s not taxpayer supported, then why are members of Congress offering cuts to the program?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In 2008 the program cost $772 million, but by 2011 it cost $1.6 billion.<\/p>\n<p>A 2011 audit found that 269,000 wireless Lifeline subscribers were receiving free phones and monthly service from two or more carriers. Several websites have been created to promote \u201cfree\u201d government cell phones, including the\u201dThe Obama Cell Phone\u201d website at Obamaphone.net.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Tim Griffin R-Ark. has proposed a bill to eliminate federal subsidies for free cell phones and has produced a great YouTube video highlighting the runaway cost of the program. The program has also been highlighted for reform by Senator Claire McCaskill D-Mo.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>My question to Old Trooper who sent us the link early yesterday was &#8220;Why  does she need a phone at all?&#8221; If she&#8217;s out protesting Romney in the middle of the day, she obviously doesn&#8217;t have a job. People without jobs don&#8217;t need phones, unless they&#8217;re looking for work. She doesn&#8217;t seem to be burdened by that particular problem.<\/p>\n<p>Unless, of course, protesting Romney is her job, because apparently SEIU was paying protesters $11\/hour for that service at that particular event;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/G5DTqvX74O4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, a couple of you sent us the video of the woman near Cleveland who told &hellip; <a title=\"The phone lady thing\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=32172\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The phone lady thing<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186,46,207],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2012-election","category-barack-obama","category-mitt-romneypaul-ryan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}