The president’s Executive Office of Management and Budget just issued this statement on the House’s decision to ban use of federal funds for NPR dues and programming:
The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 1076, which would unacceptably prohibit Federal funding of National Public Radio (NPR) and the use of Federal funds by public radio stations to acquire radio content. As part of the President’s commitment to cut spending, the President’s Budget proposed targeted reductions in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides a small amount of funding for NPR, and the Administration has expressed openness to other spending reductions that are reasonable. However, CPB serves an important public purpose in supporting public radio, television, and related online and mobile services. 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. 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.
NPR will survive without federal funding. It is not a critical need for there to be an AM station in Boise, Idaho with NPR programming when anyone can get it over the INTERNET now for free at anytime just by going to NPR.ORG – isn’t this why we spent BILLIONS on rural internet infrastructure over the last 10 years? Its really time for Obama to give back the Peace Prize now.