We listen to Minnesota Public Radio regularly and are Sustaining Members, but we find tiresome the frequent announcements by MPR President Bill Kling about needing to get federal funding.
I often wonder why federal funding is needed but I don't think the bill to cut federal funding of public broadcasting, H.R. 1076, is really based on budget concerns.
It is really an attack on a source of news and commentary that doesn't follow the current Republican line. One could say that it wants to whip the boy who said the emperor has no clothes.
What is really interesting that H.R. 1076 also prohibits federal funds being used to purchase NPR content. This doesn't sound very free market to me. It looks like it's OK to purchase Fox News content with federal funds but not NPR content. And Fox News gets far more federal subsidies than NPR.
One, News Corp paid taxes at a six percent rate while Disney paid 31 percent. The mickey mouse network paid less tax than the real Mickey Mouse company!!
Two, bailout money for the likes of GM has been used to buy ads on Fox. Where's the bill to prohibit this?
See "End the Federal Funding of Fox News", The Daily Kos, 2011-03-21.
