Congress Can’t: Solving the NPR CPB government funding dilemma

Congressional conservatives, particularly Republicans, are eager to cut government funding for National Public Radio (NPR) and some would want to include the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Whether they are after this cut because it will contribute to solving America’s budget crisis or whether they are seizing the opportunity to hopefully eliminate a media source that is indifferent to their personal views and perspectives is not the real issue. The real issue on the table is whether Congress is applying its great and vast intellect to the budget crisis in a constructive and responsible manner. And we all know how dependable it is to rely upon Congress to do anything right. So the House passed a bill to cut $50M for NPR funding from the CPB’s budget. The Senate just cut CPB’s budget $50M which evidently leaves it up to them to figure out how to apply the reduction. And thank God these moves will substantially solve our budget problems. Well, I can’t blame them for cutting something from every entities budget, but I doubt that was the motivating factor here. So perhaps Congress should receive a message broadcast from the public.
What we have here is a moment in history when any numbers of forces are conspiring to bring change to the world as we know it. And in this particular instance, to place the value of a public funded media channel into the direct hands of the public at large, rather than relying upon the pernicious machinations of Congress. This action would cause some disruption in the pubic broadcast arena, but it need not be a negative nor fatal prognosis; it could be a vast opportunity to increase the viability of public broadcasting by changing the dynamics at play.

Today Congress takes our taxes and in their infinite wisdom identifies how to spend it. At some past point Congress decided that America would benefit in any number of ways by supporting public broadcasting in a minimal way. And in looking back over what those public funds delivered, there have been benefits to the public. But times change, and Congress believes that NPR is not beneficial because many of them are not shown in the light and grandeur to which they believe they are due. Hiding behind the need to cut the budget is the typically cowardly way of using their power to punish anyone of whom they don’t approve. After all, cutting the budget is a reasonable and rational position and policy, although we are talking about an amount that is less than $0.000015 from every $1.00 of the federal budget; hardly a noteworthy amount to be spending the time they probably have spent on it already. The cut is not very honorable when we understand that the House’s bill is specifically identifying and targeting a particular entity that this part of the funding. I guess it is not surprising to see such crass behavior from these representatives of our society, and well isn’t it exactly what the public expects of “politicians”.

Have the politicians won, have they achieved their goal? Not yet, but they will get there. So what to do if you support or believe in public broadcasting? The answer is simple. Remove Congress from the equation. And if you are really interested in sending Congress a message then consider the following:

If just 50 million Americans set aside less than 1 penny a day or 6 cents a week, they would fund NPR (or CPB) with $150M; thrice what Congress is cutting. And here is the beauty, that contribution is tax deductible. So the public could cut Congress’ funding by about $50M at the same time. Now perhaps 50 million Americans is a lofty goal, and we may have to strive for only 10 million. That’s just 29 cents a week or 4 cents a day. These are not the kind of contributions that are even noticeable in most peoples’ personal budgets.

The solution to such abusive exercises of power on the part of Congress is to apply good old Yankee ingenuity. These folks are not even close enough to smart, to be able to prevent the public from getting what they choose to be in their interest. And CPB an NPR have access to a wide range of individuals, the public, that can show them how to create the processes that will free them from the bonds Congress will always want to impose.