Defund NPR
Recently was sent this link:
That’s my image, here’s Townhall’s link. Since I was a young boy, I hated NPR. They’ve had a lifelong history of dumbing down content. If they were reporting a war, you heard incessant gun fire in the background. The noises alone drove me away. It just struck me that they thought the average listener was too stupid to know what war was, so they tossed in sound effects to help. The content never enticed me to stay. Once CNN, Fox, MSNBC, XM, Cable, radio, the internet, and a host of other outlets arose to fill their void, I forgot they even existed. They served no function in my life. And, from what I can gather, the same was true for most of the US.
Originally, President Johnson asserted the charter for CPB, that’s the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as:
Now, the problem you had in 1967 was a very limited media. Not so much politically, morally, or ethically, but physically. You had radio, and you had broadcast television. That was it. There were basically three channels on television, and depending on your radio, a whole bunch. Probably 20 or so. In 1980, things changed rather dramatically when CNN went on the air. No longer was it safe to assume that only a federally funded quasi-governmental agency would be the only one capable of delivering “good music”, “exciting plays”, or “reporting on the whole fascinating range of human activity”. They definitely got the “reporting on the whole fascinating range of human activity” part down real good. They’re a news company, that’s all they do.
At about the same time, satellite television was in its infancy. For those with S-band dishes, you remember those:
You could get programming from anywhere in the world. Literally. You weren’t tied to the big three any more. I had one of those buggers, I watched NASA real-time. That was cool. Suddenly I was watching R and X rated movies, my whole experience exploded. At that time it became evident to me that there really was no need for NPR, CPB. How did they justify their existence? Folks, that was around 1980 or so.
S-Band begat the Dishnets we know today. Now you’ve got hundreds of channels. Want Education, go to educationtv. Want classical music? Go to one of the several classical channels. Symphony? Broadway? Opera? It’s all there. Concerned what you’re government’s doing? Go to C-Span. The content absolutely overwhelms what CPB was chartered to do. The purpose for CPB obviously no longer exists.
So, given the obvious eliminated need for CPB, what would you expect happened to its funding?
Funny you should ask:
| Year | Allocation | Change |
| 1969 | $5,000,000.00 | |
| 1970 | $15,000,000.00 | 200% |
| 1971 | $23,000,000.00 | 53% |
| 1972 | $35,000,000.00 | 52% |
| 1973 | $35,000,000.00 | 0% |
| 1974 | $50,000,000.00 | 43% |
| 1975 | $62,000,000.00 | 24% |
| 1976 | $78,500,000.00 | 27% |
| 1977 | $103,000,000.00 | 31% |
| 1978 | $119,200,000.00 | 16% |
| 1979 | $120,200,000.00 | 1% |
| 1980 | $152,000,000.00 | 26% |
| 1981 | $162,000,000.00 | 7% |
| 1982 | $172,000,000.00 | 6% |
| 1983 | $137,000,000.00 | -20% |
| 1984 | $137,500,000.00 | 0% |
| 1985 | $150,500,000.00 | 9% |
| 1986 | $159,500,000.00 | 6% |
| 1987 | $200,000,000.00 | 25% |
| 1988 | $214,000,000.00 | 7% |
| 1989 | $228,000,000.00 | 7% |
| 1990 | $229,400,000.00 | 1% |
| 1991 | $298,900,000.00 | 30% |
| 1992 | $327,300,000.00 | 10% |
| 1993 | $318,600,000.00 | -3% |
| 1994 | $275,000,000.00 | -14% |
| 1995 | $285,600,000.00 | 4% |
| 1996 | $275,000,000.00 | -4% |
| 1997 | $260,000,000.00 | -5% |
| 1998 | $250,000,000.00 | -4% |
| 1999 | $250,000,000.00 | 0% |
| 2000 | $300,000,000.00 | 20% |
| 2001 | $340,000,000.00 | 13% |
| 2002 | $350,000,000.00 | 3% |
| 2003 | $362,800,000.00 | 4% |
| 2004 | $377,800,000.00 | 4% |
| 2005 | $386,800,000.00 | 2% |
| 2006 | $396,000,000.00 | 2% |
| 2007 | $400,000,000.00 | 1% |
| 2008 | $393,000,000.00 | -2% |
| 2009 | $400,000,000.00 | 2% |
| 2010 | $420,000,000.00 | 5% |
| 2011 | $430,000,000.00 | 2% |
| 2012 | $445,000,000.00 | 3% |
| $10,129,600,000.00 | 8800% |
Yup, it just keeps growing and growing. Then came the news that George Soros donated a LOT of money to NPR. They then promptly fired Juan Williams. He was the only remotely conservative spokesperson at NPR. They reason they fired Williams? For expressing an opinion. That used to be considered an exciting human activity. What it did now was assure the planet that CPB no longer cared about their charter. They only cared about appeasing their base. And, that base neither represents the public interest, nor even the US citizens’ interest. It only represents the internal philosophy of the people running NPR. That’s it. That makes it no different than MSNBC, CNN, or any of the other hard left propaganda tools George Soros employs. Someone tell me what the point of NPR existing at this point is. I really see absolutely none whatsoever. The history you’ll find on the History channel. The music’s all over Sirius/XM.
Then came the internet.
They really no longer need to exist.
They certainly do not need to be contributing to the national debt.
John Boehner wants ideas, listen to Darrell Issa. Defund NPR, no one will notice.
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