March 12, 2013

GOP Congressman Still Wants to Ban “Obamaphones”

You're the racist for thinking this is racist.Drudge Report

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The low point of the 2012 presidential election may have come on September 27th, when Matt Drudge linked to a YouTube video of a somewhat-crazy-sounding black woman from Ohio explaining that she was voting for President Obama because he gave her a free phone. The conservative blogosphere (and conservative cable news, and conservative syndicated columnists, and conservative talk radio) blew up.

The shocking truth: Obama hadn’t really given the woman a free phone. It was a product of a Reagan-era program called “Lifeline,” which grants a subsidy to phone service providers in order to ensure that the very poor—those at 135 percent of the poverty line or below—have some way of dialing out in case of emergencies. Under President George W. Bush, that service expanded to cell phones.

But Congress being today’s Congress, there’s now a push to deep-six the Lifeline program. Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.), who introduced a bill in 2012 to scale back the program, announced some progress on Tuesday:

As Griffin explains on his congressional website, “[D]ead people are receiving free cell phones in the mail, eligible and ineligible individuals are obtaining more than one, and electronic kiosks have been stationed in convenience stores to spread the word about this ‘free’ opportunity.” To some extent, he has a point; there was a lot of fraud and abuse within the Lifeline program. But as Factcheck.org noted last year, Griffin ignored the fact that the feds were already reining in the Lifeline program—and the phone companies that exploited it:

The FCC, however, overhauled the program in February, enacting changes that call for building databases to confirm beneficiaries’ eligibility and to identify duplicate subscriptions. The FCC also slashed 75 percent of available subsidies for the program, which eliminated a “perverse” incentive for some phone companies to enroll ineligible persons. The FCC projects its modifications will save up to $2 billion over three years.

So: Obama isn’t giving everyone free phones. The FCC is already fixing the program. A viral right-wing meme is wrong—stop me if that sounds familiar.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate