Misleading Math from a Critic of Lifeline

At a House Communications and Technology Subcommittee Lifeline program oversight hearing, Billy Jack Gregg of Universal Consulting testified that six states receive more Lifeline funding than they should — some almost twice the amount — based on each state’s total number of eligible users. He used these numbers to suggest that there’s widespread oversubscription and fraud in these states. Here’s the problem: Gregg’s analysis itself uses flawed statistics regarding both the number of eligible subscribers and the amounts they're eligible to receive. His testimony gained a lot of traction during the hearing. Too many witnesses and representatives focused on the image of the deceitful subscriber who walks around with multiple free phones.