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Post by Conservative Listillo on Apr 10, 2013 12:04:20 GMT -7
Let's discuss. It was originally said that the program was to make sure that financially challenged persons in this country could get emergency assistance (E-911). If that were true, why are there usable unrestricted minutes? What I'm getting at, is if I took my old Blackberry Pearl which I retired almost 3 years ago, charged it up and dialed 911, that call would go through. It wouldn't make any other calls, but 911 works. How many phones are discarded every day that make this free call? What did I miss?
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Post by Conservative Listillo on Apr 10, 2013 12:24:41 GMT -7
Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.
-Ronald Reagan
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Post by keystroker on Apr 10, 2013 12:51:02 GMT -7
How about we start the discussion by calling them Bush dialers. The program predates Pres. Obama.
Next, let's restrict our mention of blackberries to the delicious summertime kind that grown on thorny canes.
Thanks!
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Post by quetzel on Apr 10, 2013 13:04:02 GMT -7
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Post by quetzel on Apr 10, 2013 13:53:09 GMT -7
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Post by Conservative Listillo on Apr 10, 2013 14:27:51 GMT -7
Good article, spun to the left. The reason I say "spun" to the left, is it starts mentioning that this is a program started in the Reagan era. While Reagan helped the poor with phone bills (much like HEEP helps with heating), I don't think he set up fees charged to phone customers to give to the program. That sounds like an indirect tax to me. Both sides do this to rile their cause. Reagan was definitely not subsidizing cell phones either, that's just the way the program evolved. Here is a disturbing quote from the article:
Here's the part that sounds like a tax to me, especially since the FCC was involved in trying to root out fraud (a good thing)
I was pointing out that the government loses sight of common sense and can't see the forest through the trees. Cell phones are a privilege, just like a driver's license, not a right.
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Post by quetzel on Apr 10, 2013 16:24:17 GMT -7
Can you opt in (or out) on paying the USF on your phone bill, sort of like Project Share with Alabama Power is voluntary?
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Post by Liberal Wisenheimer on Apr 10, 2013 18:24:24 GMT -7
If Reagan ever did anything right, it was a mistake. Our worst president, except for bush 2 .
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Post by keystroker on Apr 10, 2013 19:50:19 GMT -7
While Reagan helped the poor with phone bills (much like HEEP helps with heating), I don't think he set up fees charged to phone customers to give to the program. Fees like this go back, at the very least, to charging urban customers to pay for rural connectivity in general. I'm not sure if it's the American way or just civilized practice, but that's semantics you can hash at your next Krispy Kreme coffee klatch. And Reagan's last four years were spent researching sleep, not designing programs to brighten the new dawn in America. Do tell -- how would a person either unable to afford a phone and a contract or without a car be able to quickly and easily handle basic and emergency functions without assistance in getting a phone? Prayer? Clean livin'? Without a phone, one is disconnected from the least of the electronic means to make necessary connections given the speed with which we transact business in the United States today. Without a phone, one has almost zero chance of getting and keeping a job that is any further from home than quick walking distance. What are you begrudging? That you are not happy with your lot in life?
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Post by Conservative Listillo on Apr 11, 2013 6:52:18 GMT -7
So why not just issue everyone a cell phone at birth? Is it a residency requirement? I have a problem with my money involuntarily paying for someone elses free stuff.
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Post by keystroker on Apr 11, 2013 11:40:13 GMT -7
Then the key is that you have a problem. Work on that. It's much simpler than digging for exaggerated examples of egregious excess which do not exist.
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Post by propagandist on Apr 11, 2013 11:52:28 GMT -7
Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives. -Ronald Reagan This is the right wing's first problem. Don't forget that.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2013 18:32:23 GMT -7
Watching the news ,they are thinking about scrapping the free phones it has gotten so out of control a member of the govnerment said she got a application at her home for a free phone? Then starting the program up again a new.
These free phones are turning up at drug related crime scenes among other places than in the hands of the elderly,disable ,rural areas who the program was supposely started for..The government is thinking to many have access to the free phones who are not entitled.
What on earth would give these highly educated government people this idea?
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Post by John Doe on Apr 23, 2013 20:18:09 GMT -7
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Post by propagandist on Apr 24, 2013 17:43:01 GMT -7
Can you opt in (or out) on paying the USF on your phone bill, sort of like Project Share with Alabama Power is voluntary?
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