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FCC Proposes To Extend So-Called "Obamaphone" Program To Broadband
jfruh writes: The FCC's Lifeline program subsidizes phone service for very poor Americans; it gained notoriety under the label "Obamaphone," even though the program started under Reagan and was extended to cell phones under Clinton. Now the FCC is proposing that the program, which is funded by a fee on telecom providers, be extended to broadband, on the logic that high-speed internet is as necessary today as telephone service was a generation ago.
Just for the record, the "Obamaphone" program has a name. It's called the "Lifeline Assistance Program" and was started in the 1980s by...Ronald Reagan. It has nothing to do with Obama.
Stop reminding people what a big tax spender Little-Government-Ronnie was ...
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Like it or not, either way, you're going to spend the money.
Here's the thing about those phones. They prevent trouble. They give people opportunity.
You don't do that? The cheapest thing that can happen is somebody dies in a way that isn't even suspicious enough to keep a cop from drinking his coffee.
Then you're out a burial plot at most.
More expensive? Yeah, people end up being in prison where we pay even more to keep them there than if we just supplied them with weed and beer and cheap food.
Or worse yet. Revolution and riot. You know why the Roman leaders needed the bread and circuses? Because otherwise the out of work population of Rome would be pissed. Why did they lose work? Because the land-owners wanted slave-worked plantations, not citizen-owned farms.
You give a man something to do? Where they can be appreciated and respected? You'll get results. You piss people off and convince them they're hated, well, at a certain point, even the lowest worm will realize you're not better than they are.
And you won't always be the cat with the sharpest claws.
Yes yes! A thousand times YES! Workers of the world: UNITE! From each according to their means, to each according to the need. It will be perfect!
This is the truth. These phones do prevent trouble. The recent up-swing in homicide in Baltimore? All because they didn't have phones. My Anonymous Coward associate who posted above me? He would be in prison now, not educating all of you fools, if it weren't for his phone. Phones are what keep people anesthetized to how terrible their lives really are. Is your life tough? Here, have a phone so you can keep up with the latest gossip and now you're too busy to get in trouble or riot. Phones give people something to do, make them feel respected. "Hey man, I've got a phone. I'm going places."
Fox News hates phones. They're afraid of the power of phones.
You can't stop the progress of phones.
Like my Insightful friend above, I hope our President continues this program in his next term.
Wait until after your first oil change.