After all, these lifeline benefits kept 3.2 million people out of poverty in 2010, 1 million of whom were children.
As PolitiFact pointed out at the time, the Lifeline government benefit program, under which the phones were distributed, was established under the Reagan administration in 1984 to ensure that all Americans have access to telephone services.
In addition, there seems to be little Republican appetite for renewing federal unemployment benefits — a lifeline for millions of unemployed Americans — when they expire at the end of 2013.
But let's be honest about who else this is a lifeline for: about who benefits from reheating a property market that had looked as if it were starting to cool a little faster than had been expected.
For young people who have grown up in care, have no family left, or who cannot return home for fear of violence or abuse, housing benefit is a lifeline that keeps them off the streets.
"The 80,000 young people who find themselves homeless will think David Cameron is more focused on May's elections than the reality that, for the most vulnerable young people in our society, housing benefit is a lifeline, not a lifestyle choice," he said.
For many of them benefits are a lifeline.
"Benefits are a lifeline to many people with a learning disability who rely on them to make ends meet.
Frances O'Grady, the TUC General Secretary, said: "In today's low-pay Britain, in-work benefits are a lifeline for millions of families.
If I can't persuade people in power to stop talking about dependency, perhaps they would agree that, for every time they do, they match it with a reference to the millions of us for whom support from benefits is a lifeline, not a trap.
