House Votes to defund NPR
CBS
In a largely party-line vote, the Republican-led House of Representatives voted Thursday afternoon to prohibit federal funding for National Public Radio and prohibit public radio stations from using federal funds to pay dues to NPR and other public radio distributors or purchase their programming.
The vote was 228 to 192, with one member voting present. Every Democrat opposed the bill, along with seven Republicans.
The bill voted on Thursday prohibits all federal funding from going to NPR (which distributes "All Things Considered" and other programs) as well as to distributors like Public Radio International (distributor of This American Life and other programs) and American Public Media (distributor of Marketplace and other programs).
As part of its spending bill for the remainder of the fiscal year, the House previously voted to eliminate federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which was allocated $432 million from the government in fiscal year 2011 to distribute to public radio and television. (The Democrat-led Senate voted down the bill.) Most of that money goes to member stations, not to NPR itself.
Thursday's vote was largely symbolic, since the Democrat-led Senate is not expected to take up or pass the measure. The White House released a statement before the vote "strongly" opposing the bill, which the White House said it would hobble public radio stations around the country.
"The vast majority of CPB's funding for public radio goes to more than 700 stations across the country, many of them local stations serving communities that rely on them for access to news and public safety information," it said. "Undercutting funding for these radio stations, notably ones in rural areas where such outlets are already scarce, would result in communities losing valuable programming, and some stations could be forced to shut down altogether."
Less than ten percent of NPR's budget comes from taxpayer dollars, and Republicans stressed that cutting off that funding would not kill it.
"NPR can and should be entirely supported with private sources," Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado, who sponsored the bill, said on the floor before the vote. In an interview with CBS News he said NPR can survive on its own. (Watch the interview at left)"They could survive and even thrive," he said, stressing the need to cut spending to reduce the deficit and debt. "So let's let them loose from taxpayer subsidies."
Democrats cast the effort as political posturing by Republicans who have unfairly cast NPR as liberally biased. The vote comes following the release of a hidden-camera video from conservative activist James O'Keefe that showed an NPR executive making derogatory comments about the Republican Party and the Tea Party, including saying the words, "They're seriously racist, racist people." Like past O'Keefe videos, the short version of the video was later shown to be deceptively edited.
"Why should we allow taxpayer dollars to be used to advocate one ideology?" asked Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va, before the vote.
Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat, sarcastically thanked Republicans in the debate before the vote for trying to rid America of the hosts of "Car Talk."
"They talk about master cylinders. It's kinky," he said. "I am glad my Republican friends are finally getting to the bottom of this. And then with all the giggling and snorting they do every weekend on their show, it's got to be some kind of a code."
"They're clearly talking to the Russians or Chinese with all that giggling and snorting," Weiner added. "I am so relieved we had this emergency session that we waived the rules of the house that requires 72 hours so we can finally get these guys off my radio."
NPR's Mike Risken told CBS News in an interview that Republicans are trying to "dismantle" public radio. (Watch the interview at left.)"While the bill doesn't cut funding a penny, it is a direct and calculated effort to weaken public radio that if enacted would choke our stations ability to serve their local audiences," he said.
Lamborn, the bill's sponsor, countered that the money simply wasn't there to keep funding public radio.
"It is time for American citizens to stop funding an organization that can stand on its own feet,'' he said on the House floor, arguing that taxpayer money can no longer be spent on non-essential services. "As a country we no longer have this luxury."
According to the Associated Press, NPR took in $56 million in programming fees last year, and received $7.8 million in federal funding and federal grant money.
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The answer is no. Our national parks, like NPR, can only exist in their present state with the charitable support of the public and governmental subsidies.
Undoubtedly you prefer despotism from above - 1996 Contract on America by Newt Gingrich
wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
The Act was claimed to foster competition. Instead, it continued the historic industry consolidation reducing the number of major media companies from around 50 in 1983 to 10 in 1996[22] and 6 in 2005.[23] An FCC study found that the Act had led to a drastic decline in the number of radio station owners, even as the actual number of commercial stations in the United States had increased.[24]
Consumer activist Ralph Nader argued the act was an example of corporate welfare spawned by political corruption, because it gave away to incumbent broadcasters valuable licenses for broadcasting digital signals on the public airwaves.[25][26] There was a requirement in the act that the FCC not auction off the public spectrum which the FCC itself valued at $11-$70 billion.[25][27]
then clearly FOX should be identified by The Republican leadership in Congress that Fox is their prospective business model with a clear endorsement that it is a Republican Station Supported by Republican Businesses and viewership and be required to broadcast an appropriate disclaimer as to truth and veracity of its programming every hour.
Sounds fair to me. You get what you pay for...and if the truth hurts, then clearly the price for silencing NPR should require the identification of FOX for the POLITICAL PROPAGANDA organization that it is and NOT a journalistic enterprise for informing the public of current news and events.
The taxpayer funded handouts stop as of now for EVERYTHING! $14.5 trillion (thats 14,500 billion folks)in debt and libs want to cut nothing and spend even more? I don't want my 7 year old grandson to spend his working career paying 60% of his earnings in taxes to the irresponsible hoodlums (110th congress) that created this mess.
The public does pay the majority of their costs in private donations, not tax money. The tax money is about 10% of their funding.
This legislation will not take NPR off the air. It is symbolic to reach people like you, the ill informed but useful, loyalists of the conservative crusade to rule the country with an iron fist.
Plus, you think the 110th Congress created "this mess" ... and you think the entire debt and deficit is from hand outs?
I feel sorry for folks like you that refuse to get the facts. America needs and informed electorate to survive, so I also feel sorry for our great country that people like you can be so easily misled.
Let's put this massive overspending in perspective: A 2005 Washington Post article stated that we had a "$318.62 billion deficit" for the 2004 year. This was for the entire YEAR!!!!!! Today, the idiots in Washington are over spending at the rate of $222.5 billion IN A MONTH!!!!!! This is totally insane. We now have more than $14 trillion as a national debt, and it is projected that we will add to it another $1.65 trillion in deficit spending this year. The Republicans attempted to cut $61 billion (less than 2% of the spending) from it in budget proposals, and the Democrats in the Senate would have none of it.
They have to understand what this is doing to the nation, and it makes you step back and ask yourself "Why?". One answer is almost unthinkable. I would hope that they are only stupid and short sighted; that they are only thinking about the 2012 election - that they are only concerned with bringing home the bacon one more time in order to buy votes - and that they are attempting to force the nation into massive taxation to fund a massive government. There are some who are stating that President Obama meant something massive when he stated repeatedly that he intended to "remake America". The other rationale is that radical extremists have taken the Democrat party and they intend to cause our democratic republic to collapse, so that they can "remake" it into a socialist democracy. I do know that President Obama has several cabinet members and advisers who have been members of socialist organizations. When I heard some people mention this possible intent, I brushed it of in the past. I am not so sure now. I still hope that this is not the case, but the behavior of Democrats in leadership positions is difficult to explain.
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I call 'em as I see 'em"
You could use new glasses.
"by jgg000101
You did not say the foreign press was "one of many news sources" in your prior posts"
What news source site am I on now, Einstein??
"by jgg000101
In fact, you accused anyone who was not reading the foreign press' interpretation and reporting of a US Federal law as "intentionally misinformed"."
I did not - repost where I stated that, and try to do it without putting words in my mouth.
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slow, correct me if I am wrong but don't these posts right from your very own keyboard illustrate that you believe the foreign press' interpretation of US federal law carries great weight with you?
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I consider it among the other news sources, but find it not to be drowning in partisan rhetoric, and more direct, generally. The Economist is a good example.
But you claimed that I thought they hold sway on our laws, which I didn't ever say, and do not think.
Try not to put words in other peoples' mouths - it's very bad debate form.
I call 'em as I see 'em"
You could use new glasses.
"by jgg000101
You did not say the foreign press was "one of many news sources" in your prior posts"
What news source site am I on now, Einstein??
"by jgg000101
In fact, you accused anyone who was not reading the foreign press' interpretation and reporting of a US Federal law as "intentionally misinformed"."
I did not - repost where I stated that, and try to do it without putting words in my mouth.
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Time to defund them, too, I guess.
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