The cost of those "free" phones has begun to get the attention of even some Congressional Democratics:
Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, was incensed when she got an offer of a free phone.
"I got solicitation for a free phone at my apartment, which is certainly not a building where you're going to have people who are qualified for free phones. ... There is clearly money being wasted here."
Ya think?
In recent years, the program's costs have ballooned from some $143 million to about $2.2 billion. That's a lot of phones and minutes. You know it's out of control when you see television ads touting the "freebies".
"Just handing out phones willy nilly and allowing them to be sold on the black market," Sen. McCaskill said. "This isn't the way to do it, and we need to stop."
Occasionally, even a Democratic may stumble across the truth. But the FCC not only has no plans to stop the program, they plan to expand it into "free" broadband Internet. Never mind that phones can be checked out from unemployment offices or other social service agencies, and never mind that most public libraries today offer access to computers and high-speed Internet; some bureaucrats contend that America's "poor" somehow deserve to have these "essential services" given to them.
At some point, they're going to run out of other peoples' money.
