Anti-Terrorism Or Corporate Welfare?

This should be the question that puts Republican's in a pretty pickle:

Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.

So how much money are we spending on these wiretaps? Also if they are so important to the security of this country they why does the phone companies cut off so easily, or the FBI not pay? This really has a smell of corporate welfare from the party of *cough bullshit* "ffiscal responsibility" to me.