Have you heard of the Safelink program? It has recently been featured on channel 8 news and it has some people up in arms.

Safelink is related to the Lifeline program which was created by the FCC in 1984 to provide home phone service to low income households (read welfare recipients) at low or no cost to them. Currently the Lifeline program in Rochester offered through Frontier will provide a person on public assistance with a home phone and unlimited local calling for $12.95/mo. But the program was expanded to include cell phone service as well.

Although it seems to have become popular among recipients of or applicants for the Safelink phones to call them the “Obama phones” the program was actually begun by President George Bush and initially funded by an independent company created by President Clinton – ultimately though, the road that led to both the lifeline and safelink programs was paved by President Wilson and an agreement he made with telecommunications companies that became the basis for the 1934 Communications Act under FDR.

The gist? Safelink will provide those with low incomes a free cell phone with 68 minutes a month to use as they choose. These phones and the service are paid for through a fee that you and I pay on our cell and home phone bills each month probably without even noticing it. The “Universal Service Fee” ( I am beginning to think universal means that I pay while someone else gets something free ) that appears on your home and cell phone bill each month is put into a fund that all phone companies (phone company customers) contribute to and then the funds are parceled out to companies that create programs, such as SafeLink, to provide telecommunications service to rural areas and low-income households.

If that doesn’t upset your apple cart that much then what I saw on channel 8 news about this program might…after they interviewed a 19 year old welfare recipient (that’s right 19!) who attends MCC (on free education grants no doubt) about her free Safelink provided cell phone, the reporter quoted the CEO of Safelink as saying that “Technology is a right” – read that again…your computer, cell phone, TV, radio, microwave, I-phone, I-pod, etc… is a right! And those who cannot pay for those products or services deserve to have access to them as much as you do because it is a right. When I saw that I said to myself, this cannot be accurate…but…”The goal of the Federal Universal Services Fund (USF) is to ensure that all Americans have access to quality telecommunicationsservices at affordable rates. Not only does the USF ensure that customers in hard to access and predominantly rural areas receive quality telecom services at prices they can afford, it also subsidizes programs such as Internet services for schools and libraries, services for low-income consumers and rural health care providers.”(1)

That site goes on to say that although the USF is required by the Fed…”the USF is not considered a tax by the FCC and therefore the interstate revenue generated by government agencies is not exempt from the USF calculation.” But it seems like a tax to me.

We are hearing so much these days about affordable health care being a right that maybe we’re missing the point of entry into the deep waters we are wading through…there is a certain segment of our nation that thinks everything that you and I and most Americans work hard to obtain is actually a right, and they believe that your income, your wealth is a loan to you from them only after they have redistributed what they need to extend all these rights to all these people who aren’t contributing in the first place. Karl Marx said that the battle cry of socialism was “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” everyday you and I are participating unwittingly (and I am sure unwillingly) in the socializing of our economy, educational institutions and our phone bills, It’s time to say stop we need to turn around and return to the values of our founders, individual liberty and property rights and then begin once again to teach responsibility, accountability and a strong work ethic to our youth and citizens. Then maybe with an educated citizenry we can retake was has been stolen in this nation and return it to its rightful owners, the people!