Do The Poor Deserve Cheaper Phone Calls?

During my end of the night, bedtime reading of the Wall Street Journal, I came across a little blurb in the Washington Wire section on page A4. The section "PHONE FIGHT" reads:

FCC Chairman Martin faces resistance to overhaul of Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes phone services for poor and rural areas. NAACP and Gray Panthers slam his flat-fee-per-phone-number idea, citing burden on those making few long-distance calls. At Senate hearing, seniors' group AARP asks: "Is it fair for Bill Gates and Aunt Edna ... [to] pay the same amount?"

My answer: YES! There's a fine line preventing us from falling head-first down the slippery slope toward price cuts for lower-class consumers. First it is phone calls, then it is internet access ... who knows where it could lead. The point is, the whole situation stinks of socialist-type redistribution of wealth theories which utiliize many clever schemes to soak the rich and give break after break to the poor.

In response to those who believe we need to take it easy on the poor and give them a few breaks so they can make ends meet, I say this; are poor people worth less than rich people? Of course not, every human being on this earth has the same intrinsic value in the eyes of God. What they do with their lives has the foremost bearing on their altered standing in His mind. That said, why do leftist social reformers constantly bicker over ways to treat the poor differently than the rich?

This isn't ancient Rome where the nouveau rich, or newly rich, treated themselves to lavish pleasures including priceless crystal and building immense palaces while utilizing the services of hundreds of slaves whom they murdered savagely for no more than disgracing their masters. This is modern America where a poor person is free to do the same things as a rich person. Perhaps there are some activities not accessible to the former, but there is no barrier firmly in place preventing them from having these opportunities afforded them through hard work. Their laziness, self-doubt, etc. represent the natural barriers from self-improvement.

Unfortunately, in today's society the poor have become accustomed to the welfare system and "self-improvement" is as foreign to them as a $100 bill ...