Free Cell phones for Welfare people ?

[booger]

Has anyone heard of this ? can it be true ?

https://www.safelinkwireless.com/Enr...blic/home.aspx

welfare recipients are now eligible to receive (1) a FREE new phone and (2) approx 70 minutes of FREE minutes every month. I was a little skeptical so I Googled it and low and behold he was telling the truth. TAX PAYER MONEY IS BEING REDISTRIBUTED TO WELFARE RECIPIENTS FOR FREE CELL PHONES. This program was started earlier this year. Enough is enough, the ship is sinking and it’s sinking fast. The very foundations that this country was built on are being shaken. The age old concepts of God, family, and hard work have flown out the window.

[GeeWillikers]

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/10/the-obama-phone/

[Jeff92se]

Originally Posted by geewillikers

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/10/the-obama-phone/

you lie!



http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/cellphone.asp

[shift_skyline]

Thread pwned.

[slaytan213]

I believe everyone should have a cell phone with 911 calling capabilities.

[IMA-G-RIDER]

welfare recipients have the newest and best phones out ..

[slaytan213]

Originally Posted by IMA-G-RIDER

welfare recipients have the newest and best phones out ..

yeah, they got the new iPhone 4G-GTR Type S with VTEC yo!

[IMA-G-RIDER]

lmfaooo ..

Low-income households have been eligible for discounted telephone service for more than a decade. But the program is funded by telecom companies, not by taxes, and the president has nothing to do with it.

The president has no direct impact on the program, and one could hardly call these devices "Obama Phones," as the e-mail author does. This specific program, SafeLink, started under President George Bush, with grants from an independent company created under President Bill Clinton, which was a legacy of an act passed under President Franklin Roosevelt, which was influenced by an agreement reached between telecommunications companies and the administration of President Woodrow Wilson.

Wilson Phones, anyone?

pwwwnnneeeeddddd ....

[booger]

I believe it to be crap policy . People do not need cell phones . Use the freaking pay phone that cost $.50 .

I dont care who started the program !

[slaytan213]

Originally Posted by booger

I believe it to be crap policy . People do not need cell phones . Use the freaking pay phone that cost $.50 .

I dont care who started the program !

You truly are an idiot out of touch with reality.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/11/te...-cellfree.html

Vanishing pay phones in U.S. cause concern
By Katie Zezima
Published: Wednesday, October 12, 2005

SOUTH ACWORTH, New Hampshire — The pay phone in the dirt parking lot of the Acworth General Store here is not terribly impressive, its base coated in grime and a plastic-covered phone book hanging limply from its metal frame.

But to residents of this village of 150 people in southwestern New Hampshire, it is a phone worth fighting for. The town gets no cellphone reception, and there is no other pay phone for miles. The police and volunteer fire departments even have to use the phone sometimes when their radios do not work.

So townspeople were determined to keep the phone when the telephone company, Verizon, said in 2000 that it planned to remove the device because it was not making enough money.

"There's no other phone nearby," said Skip Auten, an electrician who volunteers shifts at the store. "It's all there is here."

The phone was the first in New Hampshire to be protected under a state law passed in July. The law sprang from the 1996 U.S. Telecommunications Act, which deregulated pay phones but allowed states to enact "public interest" laws to save phones that provide a crucial service. At least eight states have similar laws, including New York, California and Maine.

Generally, the laws call for a committee to decide whether a phone is worth saving. If so, it is subsidized by money from various sources; Kentucky, for example, uses money from the Universal Service Fund fee collected on phone bills. New Hampshire will use unclaimed telephone company deposits.

With the proliferation of cellphones, BlackBerrys and other devices that operate on digital technology rather than dimes, pay phones are a disappearing breed in the United States. There were about two million nationwide in 1997; about 1.3 million were operating last year, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

Even the Kentucky Public Service Commission, which began a public interest pay phone program last year, had the phone in its building removed because of a lack of use, said a spokesman, Andrew Melnykovych.

"It's not particularly missed," Melnykovych said. "Where they're not profitable, they're disappearing."

But they are sometimes a necessity.

"There are some folks who just can't afford a cellphone," said Sue Berkowitz of the Appleseed Legal Justice Center in Columbia, South Carolina, which filed a petition with the state on behalf of a women's shelter to enact a public interest pay phone law.

"Low-income people don't even have land lines. It's a problem in rural areas, where you can't get cell coverage. It's really a health and safety issue."

Wayne Jortner, senior counsel in the Maine public advocate's office, said a pay phone could be critical, for example, to a driver who got a flat tire in a remote town.

"A pay phone in the right place or a couple of miles away could be a lifesaver in a situation like that," Jortner said. "The same for a situation on one of our islands, where no one has decent cell coverage."

Earle Pierce, a spokesman for Verizon, said the decision to keep a pay phone running came down to dollars and cents. "The use of pay phones is way down," Pierce said. "If we can't even recover the cost of a dial tone, why would we leave the phone there?"

He would not say how much it cost to run a pay phone. Jeff Frost of Mid-America Pay Phones in Waukesha, Wisconsin, who installs public interest phones in Wisconsin, said it cost an average of about $90 a month to maintain one.

Verizon supports the public interest pay phone program in New Hampshire, Pierce said, because it is a social program financed by money already going to the state. Another town, Rumney, has petitioned to keep the pay phone at its general store.

Some cities and towns are going in the opposite direction.

Officials in Toledo, Ohio, barred new pay phones from outdoor areas in the city's Lagrange neighborhood this summer because of illegal activity centered around the phones already there, said Thomas Gibbons, principal planner for the city's planning commission.

"These pay phones are not being used for their initial purpose," Gibbons said. "Instead, we found out through police reports and neighbors watching that they're a magnet for drugs, prostitution, all the stuff that we're trying to get out of the neighborhoods."

[booger]

What did you think people did before cell phones ?

I dont have a cell phone !

Just because the little community isnt big enough for the phone company to provide them with a pay phone . What stops the community from pooling thier money and doing something for them selves ? In stead you rather see the Gov. take care of them like you do with everything else . You want the Gov. to give you everything that you need . You dont want anyone to be without anything .

You sir ... are the idiot ....who thinks you should get something for nothing .

[slaytan213]

Originally Posted by booger

What did you think people did before cell phones ?

I dont have a cell phone !

Just because the little community isnt big enough for the phone company to provide them with a pay phone . What stops the community from pooling thier money and doing something for them selves ? In stead you rather see the Gov. take care of them like you do with everything else . You want the Gov. to give you everything that you need . You dont want anyone to be without anything .

You sir ... are the idiot ....who thinks you should get something for nothing .

The community already pools their money to do stuff for themselves, it's called GOVERNMENT!

It's not just the little community. pay phones are becoming a rarity, even in big cities. But you wouldn't know about that, living in the corn fields. You probably still communicate by cup-and-string.

[booger]

Originally Posted by slaytan213

The community already pools their money to do stuff for themselves, it's called GOVERNMENT!

It's not just the little community. pay phones are becoming a rarity, even in big cities. But you wouldn't know about that, living in the corn fields. You probably still communicate by cup-and-string.

LMAO !

We make do with what we have and dont rely on the Gov. tit to get by . We dont expect the Gov. tit to feed us , house us , provide every little thing we need . We either help each other or work for what we have .

You should try it for once in your life ! Its rewarding when you earn something for the first time !

[kernel]

Originally Posted by slaytan213

I believe everyone should have a cell phone with 911 calling capabilities.

any working phone (even if it's not activated/on a plan) has 911 capabilities. Even if a cell phone is locked (password protected) you can make emergency calls on it without accessing anything else.

[booger]

Originally Posted by kernel

any working phone (even if it's not activated/on a plan) has 911 capabilities. Even if a cell phone is locked (password protected) you can make emergency calls on it without accessing anything else.

Thats what I thought also...but I wasnt sure . I told my dad to keep his phone charged and in his car just in case he needs to make a 911 call . Even if he doesnt have service .