The FCC’s chair Ajit Pai has very obviously never stopped working for his previous telecom employer Verizon. The moment he stepped into power along with the rest of the wannabe kleptocrats, he halted and then downsized the Lifeline program meant to help bridge the economic digital divide in our country. This program helps subsidize broadband internet access and other telecommunication access to low income families. Ajit Pai’s argument at the time is that a demon stole his soul and in order to get it back he must do the dirty work of a thousand devils for all eternity. And as Arstechnica reports, Pai and his cronies are once again sacrificing American families to the gods of avarice and big telecom.
The FCC voted 3-2 to scale back the federal Lifeline program that lets poor people use a $9.25 monthly household subsidy to buy Internet or phone service. The FCC proposed a new spending cap that potentially prevents people who qualify for the subsidies from actually receiving them. The FCC is also taking steps to prevent resellers—telecom providers that don't operate their own network infrastructure—from offering Lifeline-subsidized plans.
Some of the changes go into effect immediately. For others, the FCC is taking public comment before making the changes final. A potential ban on resellers participating in the program is going out for public comment.
What this does is take away smaller providers’ ability to offer subsidized internet plans, using the already tax-payer subsidized big telecom infrastructure. In doing so, according to Mignon Clyburn, one of the two Democratic commissioners who voted against this bullshit, about 70 percent of Lifeline recipients and potential Lifeline recipients must find a new provider. In the big telecom market—IF THERE IS ONE.
"Over 70 percent of wireless Lifeline consumers will be told they cannot use their preferred carrier and preferred plan," Clyburn said. "On top of that, they may not have a carrier to turn to after that happens."
Excluding resellers from the program would limit competition in the market for subsidized plans and push consumers toward network operators like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile USA, and Sprint. Consumer advocates say that some poor people simply won't be able to find a carrier that supports Lifeline.
When you consider that companies like AT&T are spending most of their energies already discriminating against low income communities with their failures to upgrade infrastructure and using technicalities to get out of offering low-income accessible plans already, it’s improbable that they are suddenly going to decide to do the right thing now. Pai and his leeches are taking public comments on imposing a draconian cap that would add more severity to the already dire rollbacks in telecommunications and broadband access faced by low income families.
If the cap is reached, Lifeline would not be able to provide subsidies to additional people even if they are poor enough to qualify for the program.
Imposing a cap will "ensure that Lifeline disbursements are kept at a responsible level and to prevent undue burdens on the ratepayers who contribute to the program," the proposal said. Pai has repeatedly criticized the Lifeline program for being ripe with "waste, fraud, and abuse," with subsidies going to ineligible subscribers and "phantom" subscribers who don't exist.
Remember, the Republican Party and Ajit Pai’s main excuse for all of this is a racist-dog whistle attack on low income people. The dog whistle is a mythology of excessive fraud, where “hardworking Americans” (white) are subsidizing people who are lazily sitting around getting free internet—you know who. And while that is happening, you can look at the infrastructure promised and not built by companies like Verizon, after receiving BILLIONS of dollars in handouts from tax payers. This is not Trump, it’s the Republican Party. The same crew that introduced a bill a few months ago, trying to do away with low income telecommunications entirely.
Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel wrote that the FCC had recently spent a lot of money setting up a verification system that was developed in the hopes of assuaging the whimsically-frugal republicans but clearly Republicans are willing to waste that money by not even seeing how it works.
Instead of taking into account the millions of dollars that have already been spent on a new system of national verification to reduce waste, fraud, abuse, we discard its possibilities before we even begin.
Rosenworcel finished her dissent stronger than I can do it justice. So I’ll just put it here.
Instead of reviewing new in-depth audits, we toss them in the trash rather than use them to inform change.
Instead of recognizing that there are Lifeline enrollees in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico who are using the program to pull their lives back together after devastating storms, we seek to cut off their Internet and phone service.
Instead of consulting with Tribal authorities about changes to Lifeline that impact native communities, we hang up on the least connected.
Instead of helping of the veterans who rely on Lifeline for jobs, health care, and reacclimating to civilian life, we turn them away.
Instead of assisting the low-income elderly with access to modern communications, we deny them service.
Instead of helping kids do their schoolwork and navigate the Homework Gap, we disconnect their signal. We deny them a fair shot at future success. This is not real reform. This is cruelty. It is at odds with our statutory duty. It will do little more than consign too many communities to the wrong side of the digital divide.
I dissent.
