A Modest Proposal

The Fiscal Times reports:

Some 20 million Americans now have government-paid cellphones, along with a modest number of minutes of use a month, also taxpayer paid. The program, known as Lifeline, started in the 1980s with landlines, switched to mostly bare boned phone/text wireless models and soon will offer more sophisticated phones with Internet access.

[snip]

Qualifying for a free phone is simple enough. If anyone in a household takes part in any government assistance program—from food stamps to unemployment—or if the household income is below federal poverty guidelines, a free phone is available. For example, ever since the law allowed able-bodied people with income at or below the poverty line to be eligible for food stamps, a growing number of college students have qualified. As such, they’re “pre-approved” for free-cellphones.

We're all in favor of such Government programs designed to bring basic services to those who would otherwise go without. Here in Beautiful Fauquier County, for example, we reside in an area under-served by Eastern European prostitutes. Surely there can be no dispute that sex is a more basic need than, say, texting smiley-faces.