{"id":15708,"date":"2012-09-28T12:36:28","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T16:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=15708"},"modified":"2012-09-28T12:36:28","modified_gmt":"2012-09-28T16:36:28","slug":"obama-phones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=15708","title":{"rendered":"Obama Phones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is the &#8220;Obama Phone&#8221; video that has gone viral on <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/\" rel=\"homepage\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tpAOwJvTOio?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"433\" height=\"283\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/where-do-obama-phones-come-from\/article\/2509203\">Washington Examiner<\/a> posted a story yesterday about the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Administration of federal assistance in the United States\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Administration_of_federal_assistance_in_the_United_States\" rel=\"wikipedia\" target=\"_blank\">federal program<\/a> behind the Obama Phones.<\/p>\n<p>The article reports:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>The program is called Lifeline, established in 1984, originally created to subsidize landline phone service for <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Poverty\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Poverty\" rel=\"wikipedia\" target=\"_blank\">low income<\/a> <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"United States\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667&amp;spn=10.0,10.0&amp;q=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667 (United%20States)&amp;t=h\" rel=\"geolocation\" target=\"_blank\">Americans<\/a>, funded by government-collected telecommunication fees, paid by consumers.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>In 2008, the program was expanded to support <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Cell phones\" href=\"http:\/\/www.t-mobile.com\/shop\/phones\/\" rel=\"tmobile\" target=\"_blank\">cell phones<\/a> which quickly escalated the cost of the program. In 2008 the program cost $772 million, but by 2011 it cost $1.6\u00a0billion.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The article points out that many of the people receiving free cell phones had signed up for <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Cheap cell phones\" href=\"http:\/\/www.t-mobile.com\/shop\/phones\/?priceRange=0-0\" rel=\"tmobile\" target=\"_blank\">free phones<\/a> from two or more carriers.<\/p>\n<p>The video below (posted on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UCqU8yarNpc&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;list=PLBFB75A4E2BDC6DC7#!\">YouTube<\/a>), produced by\u00a0Rep. Tim Griffin R-Ark, provides a common sense solution to the outrageous growth in the free phone program:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UCqU8yarNpc?list=SPBFB75A4E2BDC6DC7&amp;hl=en_US\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"483\" height=\"287\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is one of many programs that could be changed in order to reduce the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"United States public debt\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/United_States_public_debt\" rel=\"wikipedia\" target=\"_blank\">federal deficit<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: none; float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=20df4247-3815-4292-bb5a-44ec92cc16ea\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the &#8220;Obama Phone&#8221; video that has gone viral on YouTube: The Washington Examiner posted a story yesterday about the federal program behind the Obama Phones. The article reports: The program is called Lifeline, established in 1984, originally created &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=15708\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1155,4038,4035,4037,2720,4036,285,999],"class_list":["post-15708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-administration-of-federal-assistance-in-the-united-states","tag-landline","tag-mobile-phone","tag-obamaphone","tag-the-washington-examiner","tag-toll-free-telephone-number","tag-united-states","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15708"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15711,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15708\/revisions\/15711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}