Is Public Broadcasting Needed Anymore?

The nature of the sponsorship message has changed in the last 20 years. Used to be that they'd either a) not include any taglines or mentions of products, or b) craft a PBS/NPR-specific message (particularly for children's shows). Now a lot of them take the pro forma route to traditional advertising.

 

Funding of NPR is not an essential service of the federal government.

It's time for our government to quit subsidizing activities (like Amtrack, NPR, agriculture, GM, TARP, etc.) that are not part of its constitutionally-limited responsibilities and should be the exclusive province of the private sector. If you can't swim without a fat subsidy taken out of my wallet, you really don't need to be around. Sink or swim.

We're looking at debt into the trillions as far as the eye can see. You could argue that NPR's money is not that big a slice of the pie, but you've got to start somewhere. Budget cuts are like a knifefight in a phone booth. Everything gets cut. Everybody gets hurt.

 

Why is that conservative folks don't get really worked up about the budget deficits unless a Democrat is in the White House?

 

You're missing the big picture.

Unless massive cuts for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and defense are on the table, anything else means little. Lawmakers like to pick on the programs to help the poor because those constituents don't fund their campaigns.

Let's start with defense. Pull out all armed forces from every foreign country and let Guard members go home.

 

You could also say this about libraries and state parks, right?

 

You could also cut the requirement for public notices to appear in newspapers.

 

If the government stops subsidizing Amtrak, it should also stop subsidizing the interstate highway system. The amount of money spent on road construction and maintenance in this country -- a $15 billion, underground 2-mile highway through downtown Boston, for starters -- dwarfs any investment made in public transportation.

 

Agreed. Let me keep my taxes, and I'll happily build my own roads wherever I want to go.

 

Anything to keep more and more of the public in the dark about the public's business . . .

 

Talk hard!

 

[quote author=Bamadog lin

*actually reads Constitution*

Oh look, the government is not only allowed, but directed to "promote the General Welfare."

 

There are some posts on here that worry and scare me, and not only because they appear on a site with the word journalists in the title. Wow. Just, you know, wow.

Yeah, NPR funding is sucking us dry, but let's keep playing world police and keep the military industrial complex humming so we can "defend our nation's freedoms" ... many, many miles from our shores.