With the budget ax coming down once again, funding is being cut from departments all across the spectrum.
Congress has proposed $35 billion in cuts from government programs including Planned Parenthood, college aid, school grants, housing subsidies and public broadcasting. While most of these programs will only be losing a portion of their federal funding if this bill passes, public broadcasting is at risk of losing every dime it receives from the government.
That’s $430 million annually, to be exact, which is near the amount spent overseas on war efforts in a day and a half.
In order to fix this economic mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, cuts are going to happen. There’s no other way to fix a $1.6 trillion deficit without reevaluating the way our money is being spent now.
But a budget cut is different from a straight-up removal of funds.
Established by Congress in 1967, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is responsible for providing funding for local and national programming for both radio and television. They sponsor National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcast Systems (PBS), along with shows like “Sesame Street” and “The NewsHour.”
Across the country, CPB helps fund nearly 1,300 locally-owned and operated public television and radio stations and is the largest single source of funding for research, technology and program development for public radio, television and related online services.
Last week, information was released from a survey of the American public about the decision to cut or not cut funding from public broadcasting.
A 10 percent cut, sure. 20 percent? Fine. But the entire amount of federal funding for a government-founded organization?
That’s just absurd.
An overwhelming 83 percent of the Democrats disagreed with the decision, which is to be expected. The shocking number was the 56 percent of Republicans that also disagreed.
Of the Americans surveyed, 69 percent opposed the idea.
Below the information for this study, a brilliant Libertarian for Freedom (as he stated clearly) had some words of wisdom for the surveyors.
“We don’t watch you, your ratings are a joke and you don’t deserve to exist.”
Really? You officially sound like a hypocrite, not to mention a moron.
CPB is a driving force behind the education of people in towns small and large across our nation. I can think of 10 things off the top of my head that should be vanquished before public broadcasting, but listing any of them here would certainly cause an outrage.
I have a friend who almost always has NPR on in his car. While I’m not a huge fan of radio news, I’ve heard a few things while in that Corolla that I haven’t seen or heard covered elsewhere.
Many are under the impression that all CPB does is produce factual television shows that don’t really interest anyone outside the field and boring radio broadcasts.
When you look at the remainder of your line-up options on different television channels and radio stations, you’ll see that Snooki isn’t going to be speaking, nor will Flavor Flav.
The education of this nation is already under fire with subpar school systems littering the country and the dropout rate climbing year after year.
I’m all about trimming the fat and bringing that deficit down to a normal number without trillion following it, but priorities seem a bit out of order in Washington.
@ The Daily Mississippian — Oxford, Miss.
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