WASHINGTON - House Republicans yesterday revived their efforts to slash funding for public broadcasting, as a key committee approved a $115 million reduction in the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that could force the elimination of some popular PBS and NPR programs.
On a party-line vote, the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees health and education funding approved the cut to the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes money to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. It would reduce the corporation's budget by 23 percent next year, to $380 million, in a cut that Republicans said was necessary to rein in government spending.
The reduction, which would come in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, must be approved by the full Appropriations Committee, and then the full House and Senate, before it could take effect. Democrats and public broadcasting advocates began planning efforts to reverse the cut.
Liberals are, predictably, awash in tears over the thought of cutting spending to public television (due, as one has put it, to all those tax cuts for the rich Republicans keep handing out). My question is: Why are taxpayers footing the bill for television programming most of them don't watch?
Americans have a glut of entertainment choices at their disposal already. Video cames, internet, hundreds of teleivision channels...it has gotten to the point where we have so many entertainment choices available that some have taken to purchasing gadgets for the sole purpose of recording entertainment they don't have time to get to.
Americans need more television channels/radio stations like they need another hole in the head. Yet, for some reason, there is an insistence on the left that we all, collectively, pay for publicly-funded radio/television programming.
I think that's baloney. Even the "It allows us to see great shows/programming that wouldn't make it in the consumer market" is bunk. With the advent of the internet, any low-budget group of people can create a television/radio show and distribute it to the masses. There is simply no need for taxpayer involvement in this process any more.