Vitter has made headlines recently through criticizing the freewheeling
subsidization of cell phone operation for individuals that qualify under a variety
of government programs. The Lifeline program was started in 1984 to subsidize
landline phone service for the purposes of ensuring contact was available for
emergency purposes, contact with family and friends, and for assisting in contact
for employment purposes. Modest in size until 2008, it has grown 15 times in since.
One reason was because the program was changed late in the Pres. George W. Bush
Administration to allow for cell phones. This means the government pays basically
for 250 minutes a month and 1,000 text messages, but the cell phone providers authorized
in the program offer low priced-to-free phones and add-on options at very low
rates that grant users access to the same features non-qualifiers may pay
hundreds of dollars a month to get the same. And while the program prohibits
households having more than one, many
apparently use it as an additional phone to others they already contract for
out of pocket.
Another is the relaxation
of eligibility policies for qualification to many federal programs under
Pres. Barack
Obama, combined with the economic slowdown induced by his policies that has
expanded considerably the number of people who qualify – regardless of whether
there is any actual need or inability to pay to qualify. For example, given my
wife’s severe physical disability that qualifies her for government assistance,
regardless of the fact I am a full-time university professor and she teaches
there part-time, our household is eligible to receive one (naturally, we turned
down the offer upon her qualification). That others use them as additional
household phones also testifies to the fact that the eligibility requirements
as currently constituted produce superfluous waste of taxpayer resources.
(Speak of the devil! Shortly after I wrote the below paragraph, I got
our mail and there was a solicitation for a free cell phone. The provider,
Tracfone – more about them below – promised delivery after “3 easy steps” and this
came in English, Spanish, and French. The deal: 250 minutes a month, voice
mail, and unlimited text messages. If you accept only 125 minutes a month, then
you could roll over minutes. If you accept only 68 minutes a month with
rollover, you also get free calling to 100
countries. I guess options to pay to expand these and to buy the phone come
only after approval of the initial application (although another flyer did say as part of this you could "Get a FREE Cell Phone"). You have to assent insisting
this is the only free phone in the household, that you will inform the company
within 30 days if you no longer qualify or move, and that you believe you
qualify. Interestingly, it asks you to fill
in a contact phone number. Gentle readers, fear not – we will not pull a
little more change from your pockets by taking them up on this.)
Finally, the program
is riddled with fraud. Besides violating the one-per-household requirement,
apparently the dead also get them (used by the living) and non-qualifiers
apparently get them with ease. These incidents led Rep, Tim Griffin of
Arkansas a couple of months prior to Vitter’s initial legislative efforts to
rein in the program to introduce H.R. 176 to
return the program to landline-only status.
But Vitter has ratcheted
up complaints against the program, drawing the ire of the largest provider (owned
by the world’s richest man, Mexico’s Carlos Slim), Tracfone (see above). It ran
a newspaper ad criticizing his proposal that would end the program funded by a surcharge
on telephone bills, and then sent
out text messages to program users telling them “Save Lifeline! Call Sen Landrieu
at 202-224-3121. Due to Sen Vitter program is in jeopardy.”
As Vitter noted, that the biggest
recipient of corporate welfare related to this activity reacted as it did shows
precisely the relatively large amount of business it feels is at stake and that
it must know the facts behind this transfer of wealth are unflattering
concerning it. And as the information above demonstrates, Vitter entirely is
correct that much of what the program merely makes cell phone access an
entitlement for a large portion of the population, and that the emergency function
of it easily can be provided by charities or at very low cost to government by
taking old, unused cell phones and converting them to 911 use only.
Perhaps there can be some melding
of the Vitter
amendment to S.
954 and the Griffin bill with other provisions to make this a program that
serve the truly needy. For households comprised of all unemployed people,
perhaps service for 911 and a menu of very limited minutes and texts can be provided
for those who don’t choose a landline option. Beyond that in housegolds of
employed people, perhaps government could just provide a cell phone that is 911
enabled that receivers (under much tighter eligibility requirements focusing on
the truly needy) on their own dime can use, funded through a program where the
government buys back used phones not longer in service for a very small price.
Something like this would ensure only those that can’t otherwise afford them would
get them, and anything services beyond that they, not taxpayers, would ante up.
But how this controversy has
unfolded also points out another area of reform. It’s illegitimate for a
government contractor such as Tracfone to use the means provided by that
contract and through the contracted service itself for political advocacy on an
issue related to the contracted service. While federal law would address the
program, it also can, and so can Louisiana (within the state), pass a law that
prohibits a government contractor in performance of that contract to engage in
political advocacy regarding the contracted program. This would prevent a
provider from using the infrastructure on which delivery of the program through
the contract to advocate about that program, but would leave it free to use
other means of advocacy, such as newspaper ads, to achieve this expression.
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