The Lifeline program is part of the Universal Service Charge which provides a number of telecommunication services to rural healthcare organizations, tribal reservations, schools, libraries, and those with low income. . Lifeline is 48 cents of the average USC charge. I don't think the government or the phone companies are try to hide anything. The charges are fully explained on the bill or the FCC website.The LifeLine program is not, nor has ever been, funded by tax dollars.Look at the pretzel you're twisting yourself into to maintain your idiocy that your taxes pay for ObamaPhones. A charge is not a tax. There are all sorts of charges for all sorts of reasons so companies can turn a profit, that doesn't make them taxes.So what you've done is take 2 billion dollars out of the pockets of American consumers in the form of a "surcharge" that is paid to service providers which is then paid as a tax to the Federal Government which then spends it to give people free phones.
For you to sit here and claim that isn't a tax is about as duplicitous as it gets. If you're going to steal money from Americans to pay for your entitlements, Faun...at least have the political courage to admit what it is you're doing instead of hiding behind schemes like this one.
And as stated on the FCC website, the 'universal service' fee is optional. Not every company applies it. I'm sure some don't, but collect that fee in other ways.
Sure, you're still paying ... but it's not coming out of your taxes.
A charge is not a tax? Is a fee a tax? When Massachusetts taxpayers revolted and passed legislation that prohibited their State politicians from raising taxes more than a certain percentage the government responded by raising "fees" on virtually everything the public needed to do through their government. The cost of getting a drivers license doubled...every single video game in night club that used to have a $15 year license fee suddenly cost $50.
What is being done with the "Universal Service Fund" is especially sleazy. The government wants to give free phones away but they KNOW that if they pay for that out of taxpayer monies that it will create an uproar from taxpayers who are already struggling to pay their bills. So what they DO is tax the companies who provide all of us with phone service and tell them that if they want to they can recoup that cost by charging us.
Now you've just stated that some companies don't apply the Universal Service Fund Surcharge to their customers. Would you like to tell us the name of that telephone service provider? The truth is they ALL pass that charge along! They also get paid a fee for each new ObamaPhone customer that they sign up for the program...a fee that IS paid by the Federal Government! I suppose you're now going to tell me THAT isn't coming out of my taxes either?
Your inability to understand that, or accept it, really makes no difference.
The LifeLine program is funded by fees tacked on to each and everyone of our phone bills! Now you can call them anything you want to, Faun but that's simply semantics. In reality it's a tax on our phones that we pay to the phone service providers and then they pay to the Federal Government. It's a sleazy way for the government to hit us up with yet another tax without having to admit that THEY are doing so! Instead they declare that it's totally up to the phone service providers whether or not to pass that cost along (wink...wink) and they have nothing to do with it!
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