Tossing a Lifeline

I was watching TV one day when a commercial came on showing a rather large black woman. The woman was distraught because she couldn’t afford a phone and was worried what would happen if she had an emergency and didn’t have any way to call for help.

Never fear! The government came to her rescue. The commercial then went on to tell us about this wonderful program that would give free cell phones to people who couldn’t afford them. With their free cell phones, if they had an emergency, they could make a call and help would be on the way. Not only that, there were a bunch of texts and some data thrown in for good measure.

The commercial ended by showing the large and now smiling black woman with her new cell phone pasted to her ear. She looks at the camera and says, “Now I can call all my friends whenever I want!”

Now, before you go “woke” all over my ass, keep in mind that I didn’t cast the commercial. I’m not the one who selected a large black woman as the poster child for free phones. I’m describing her as a large black woman because she was a large black woman.

And now, back to my point.

It’s sad I have to keep repeating this: Nothing is free. Someone is paying for these “free” cell phones. And, if you’re someone who pays your own phone bills, that someone is you.

Take a close look at your phone bill. You’ll see a line item for “Universal Lifeline”. That’s where they get you. I have three phones on my account, so I pay about a buck a month to help fund giving free phones away to people.

Quick Fact: There are about 300 million cell phones in the U.S. About 18 million of them are being supplied for free. At $.30 per phone, the Lifeline program collects about $85 million in taxes each month or just over $1 billion per year. That’s an awful lot of “free”.

Second Quick Fact: If you do the math, you’ll see that even $1B isn’t nearly enough money to cover the cost of the phone and service for 18M people for a year. So, even more of our other tax dollars are being spent on giving people “free” phones.

The Lifeline program was started in 1985 to provide discounted basic local phone service to low-income consumers. Somewhere along the way, it became an unlimited everything plan with free smartphones that let recipients call whoever, whenever and for however long they choose.

So, I’m paying to give away a free smartphone with a plan that includes unlimited voice, unlimited texts and 6GB of data. And, they get free premium caller ID and a spam blocker. Lucky me. I get to pay to give away a phone that includes a plan that’s better than the one I have.

Something is wrong here. I can understand giving someone a phone they can use in emergencies. That’s what the term “Lifeline” implies and was the reason the program was created. But things have gotten out of hand. A phone used for emergency communications should be able to call 911 and maybe it should let someone add a contact or two. It should probably also receive texts in case there’s an Amber Alert or something. I could get on board with that.

But giving away unlimited and premium services is an entirely different thing. And, hiding what I’m being charged to pay for it in my phone bill is a sneaky way of taxing me.

Sales taxes and other government fees shouldn’t be hidden where no one can see them. They should be displayed in large bold-faced font in everyone’s face. The government should be required to make sure people are aware of how much they’re being taxed, and what it’s being spent on.

But they’re not. So they continue to tax us in a myriad of hidden and sneaky ways designed to keep you in the dark about how much of your money they’re actually taking from you, and what they’re doing with that money.

Today’s pop quiz has two questions: