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It's Official, Trump proposes to zero-out CPB budget

It is inherently political, as it involves the expenditure of public moneys,
which are collected from the taxpayers and appropriated by our elected representatives.
It is why I asked our host to be more indulgent than usual about politics in this discussion.

You can make arguments for or against doing that. I happen to be against it.
I am amused by the absolute sense of entitlement shown by those of you on the other side of the argument.

It's not your money!
 
FreddyE1977 said:
I am amused by the absolute sense of entitlement shown by those of you on the other side of the argument.

It's not your money!
Click to expand...

I'm not sure where you get that idea. Anyone who has ever hosted a pledge break knows where the money comes from and how it gets there.

As I've said, for every federal dollar a station gets, they have to raise a lot more from their local community. That's the deal.

The truth is the money commercial stations isn't their money either. It came from the advertisers and investors.
 
Advertisers, investors and pledge donors all have the option to hand their money over voluntarily.
Taxpayers don't have the option to say no. If you try it a bunch of armed men from the IRS will show up at your door. That's the difference.

Getting back on topic, I would still maintain that the audience for NPR is overwhelmingly urban.
I have never heard NPR give a farm report. I used to listen to NPR stations in places like Toledo and
East Lansing where you would think they might. By contrast the local commercial stations aired them
at least twice a day. Listening to their programming I don't find a whole lot that would seem to appeal
to a rural audience.

In trying to defend themselves from this budget cut I've seen that NPR execs have stated that they
are "a critical resource needed to deliver emergency warnings". Seriously? If you are living out in some rural area and you don't have NPR you won't know to head to the storm shelter in time? Even with all of today's alternatives which include cell phones? That's laughable.

When I said "it's official" I meant that Trump had actually submitted a written proposal to zero out the CPB budget. Before that people had been speculating for over a year that he would do so. I just meant that the proposal was finally real.
 
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FreddyE1977 said:
When I said "it's official" I meant that Trump had actually submitted a written proposal to zero out the CPB budget. Before that people had been speculating for over a year that he would do so. I just meant that the proposal was finally real.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter. He proposed the exact same thing last year, and it was ignored:

https://current.org/2017/03/trump-budget-seeks-to-zero-out-cpb-funding-by-2018/

The Congress does what it wants with spending. They haven't voted on a budget in years.

Check back a year. I bet they're still getting money.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
I have never heard NPR give a farm report. I used to listen to NPR stations in places like Toledo and
East Lansing where you would think they might.
Click to expand...

That's Rust Belt, not rural. I'd be thinking more along the lines of Rapid City and Topeka.

Besides, and this is something the anti-NPR crowd conveniently ignores, the typical NPR station's schedule is not a 24/7 parade of elitist political chatter for limousine-liberal city dwellers. There are news features about all sorts of people, places and things, quiz shows, comedy, even music on the weekends on some stations. Don't sell the fellow behind the tractor wheel short. They don't all want right-wing talk, farm reports and classic country music, and even those who do may not want it all the time. The NPR stations have an audience in deep red America.
 
And they can keep it by donating to the stations themselves.

Just for your knowledge, both the Lansing and Toledo media markets serve a large agricultural audience. Michigan State is the premiere agricultural education institution in Michigan. Northwest Ohio is a whole lot of farm land.
 
To quote Charlie Dent (R-PA): “As I always say, don’t pay too much to those presidential budget proposals because they really don’t mean much at the end of the day."
 
The headline says conservative, but the show description says something else:

The hosts will talk with guests "from across the ideological spectrum in the worlds of politics, policy, the arts and academia" about the "larger discussions taking place in the country today," PBS said in a statement.
 
TheBigA said:
The headline says conservative, but the show description says something else:

The hosts will talk with guests "from across the ideological spectrum in the worlds of politics, policy, the arts and academia" about the "larger discussions taking place in the country today," PBS said in a statement.
Click to expand...

So, in the words of the late George Carlin, a bigger-than-usual deception is underway.
 
By the way, as I predicted, CPB funding was extended under the new omnibus spending bill passed by the House & Senate last night.

The amount is $445 million and will continue through 2020. You can read it on page 1020 of the bill.
 
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