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Comment by zikduruqe | Hacker News Reader

Which Lifeline phones started in 1985 under Regan.

https://www.fcc.gov/general/lifeline-program-low-income-cons...

But it's easy to blame Obama.

Around the time Obama became president is when they started giving cell phones from the program instead of just subsidizing landline phones. It happened before he was president but given the recession that took place while he was president it was regarded as the Obama phone because he was president when the majority of people got them.

It was a relatively memorable moment of the 2012 election.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio

I had a note in this comment on fraud, but it looks like there was probably a consistent pattern of waste/fraud for a long time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Fund#Waste_a...). There were some proven accusations of fraud in 2012 as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY4cy95VFes

Obama Phone Lady as evidence of fraud.... laughable.

I used to sell Lifeline phones into certain carriers back in 2009 - 2012 when I worked with various phone OEMs. I can see where some phone resellers could create some fraud.

But the government is not involved. They merely subsidize the program.

Just to be clear, I was not claiming that Obama phone lady was evidence of fraud. I was only pointing out it was a memorable moment during the 2012 election because that clip was replayed ad nauseam at the time. So I think people call them "Obama phones" because of a fairly successful campaign at pinning their existence or popularity on Barack Obama (where this woman credited her free phone to Obama), and this particular video clip was shown quite a bit at the time.

The fraud remark in my comment was about the other news video I linked and also a link to wikipedia. Free phones and phone plans are really, really low on my list of things I care about in terms of examples of bad governance in the US.

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