The FCC "Lifeline" program started in 1985 to provide phone service to rural areas for emergency access and was paid for by an added tax on paying customers' phone bills.
In 2008, the program was vastly expanded to include cellular phones, named SafeLink, and now costs taxpayers $2.2 billion a year.
A qualifying recipient must be 135% under the federal poverty guideline. But the FCC admits that they are unable to verify nearly half of their recipients and that there are multiple phones in a single household.
Reports from law enforcement state their officers are seeing a notable increase in these phones at crime scenes and on the black market.
The FCC admits the waste in the program, but instead of fixing the problem, they now want to expand the program to broadband internet access.