MASSIVE FRAUD, WASTEFUL SPENDING DISCOVERED IN 'LIFELINE' PHONE PROGRAM

[Geee]

Breitbart:

INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR)- Eyewitness News has discovered a program created to provide low-income Americans with emergency phone services has now grown into a multi-billion dollar program paid for with your money. 13 Investigates shows how every time you pay your cell phone bill you are helping someone else get a phone to talk and text for free. The cost of the free cell phones has exploded in the past three years. In 2008, the program cost $772 million, but by 2011, the cost more than doubled to $1.6 billion.The FCC audited the Lifeline program last year, uncovering 400,000 instances of multiple phones distributed to individual people. In Indiana alone, 16 percent of people who got free cell phones did not qualify for the program.

 

*Video at link

[Geee]

As Valin would say "I am shocked - totally shocked."

[SrWoodchuck]

The Face of this "Program."

 

Carlos Slim

 

Carlos Slim, World’s Richest Man, Gets Richer Supplying ‘Obamaphones’ to Poor

Slim was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1940 to Maronite Catholic parents Julián Slim Haddad and Linda Helú, both of Lebanese descent (then part of the Ottoman Empire).^[5][6] His father, born Khalil Salim Haddad Aglamaz, immigrated to Mexico at the age of 14 in 1902 and changed his name to Julián Slim Haddad

 

A Mexican telecom mogul who holds the title of world's richest man, and one of President Obama's top donors are both getting even richer from the U.S. government program that supplies so-called "Obamaphones" to the poor.

Carlos Slim, who has an estimated net worth of $70 billion, owns a controlling stake in TracFone, which makes $10 per phone for each device it provides to poor Americans.

 

A wireless company profiting from the so-called “

” giveaway program is run by a prominent Democratic donor whose wife has raised more than $1.5 million for the president since 2007.

The program expanded to include cell phones in 2008. That change has rapidly increased the cost to the federal government—$1.6 billion in 2011, up from $772 million in 2008. The number of Lifeline beneficiaries rose from 7.1 million to 12.5 million during the same period; cell phones account for roughly half of that 12.5 million.

One of the major providers of the free cell phones—3.8 million subscribers as of late 2011—is Miami-based TracFone Wireless, a company whose president and CEO, Frederick “F.J.” Pollak, has donated at least $156,500 to Democratic candidates and committees this cycle, including at least $50,000 to the Obama campaign.

Pollak’s wife, Abigail, is a campaign bundler for Obama who has raised more than $632,000 for the president this cycle, and more than $1.5 million since 2007. She has personally contributed more than $200,000 to Democratic candidates and committees since 2008.

The Pollaks hosted Obama at their Miami Beach home in June for a $40,000-per-plate fundraising dinner, and hosted a similar event with Michelle Obama in July 2008. The couple personally donated a combined $66,200 to Obama’s reelection effort that year.

TracFone, a direct financial beneficiary of the Lifeline program, receives $10 a month for each subscriber in the form of federal subsidies. The company can make an additional profit selling extra minutes to Lifeline subscribers who exceed their monthly allowance of 250 prepaid minutes.

TracFone and other wireless providers claim that revenue from selling additional minutes to Lifeline customers is low, but decline to publicly release such figures.

Carlos Slim, majority owner of the NYSlimes, is also owner of 'Lifeline.' This is the Croniest of Capitalism. Slim has the Obama necessary qualifications.......vast amounts of money & no scruples. The fact that he has Mid-East parentage is just another plus.

Since this "program" was established under Booosh.....he can be blamed for the problems associated with Obam making it a debilitating entitlement.

[Geee]

When we were in Florida in Sept, there were billboards all over and ads on TV advertising this program, mostly in Spanish.

[pollyannaish]

So. We struggle to pay our cell phone bill while we pay for these folks to get one or two or five? You can not believe how angry this makes me.