The Federal Communications Commission, headed by Ajit Patel, announced it would be scaling back the Obama Phone program to stem the widespread abuse and fraud that has permeated the system.
Now, a new report has revealed that the problem is far greater than imagined.
Photo Credit: nowtheendbegins.com A government audit of the program has been completed and the results are disturbing. Findings revealed that more than a third of enrollees in the program do not actually qualify. In addition, the Government Accountability Office report also found that more than 5500 people have two phones and another 6500 were registered to people that government records show as deceased.
Making matters worse, if that’s possible, the GAO also claimed that the program stashed $9 billion in private bank accounts. So not only are taxpayers paying for free phones for people who don’t qualify for them, their money is also lining the pockets of corporate CEOs.
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s chief oversight committee, requested the audit over concerns about fraud. In a statement on the findings, she too appeared shocked. “A complete lack of oversight is causing this program to fail the American taxpayer-everything that could go wrong is going wrong,” McCaskill said.
Photo credit: Politico
“We’re currently letting phone companies cash a government check every month with little more than the honor system to hold them accountable, and that simply can’t continue,” the senator added.
Some of McCaskill’s fellow lawmakers, being lovers of all things Obama, want to expand the program to include the internet as well.
President Trump cut the $2.25 million budget for the program in half, after a 2016 investigation revealed that Total Call Mobile was enrolling fake users in the Lifeline program. That scam alone costed taxpayers $51 million dollars. If liberal politicians want to continue the program, how about they start paying for it out of their government salaries? If that happened, it’s a sure bet there would be a lot less people “needing” cell phones.
Did Obama really care about what people needed? Watch this video and tell us in the comments:
