Posted on 02/10/2006 8:00:19 PM PST by FreeManDC
Administration renews attack on public broadcasting with funding cuts similar to those rejected by Congress and the American people in June
WASHINGTON February 6, 2006 John Lawson, president and CEO of the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS), condemned cuts in federal funding for public broadcasting recommended by the Bush Administration earlier today. Lawson said: By submitting a budget proposal with cuts of this magnitude, the Administration is completely ignoring the will of the American people as they expressed it quite vocally last June. In now renewing the attack on public broadcasting, the Administration is saying the opinions of the American people do not matter.
The Administrations budget proposal would rescind more than $100 million in federal funding for public broadcasting over FY2007 and FY2008. Lawson said: In addition to drastic cuts over the next two years, the budget proposes no federal funding for FY2009. With this tactic, the Administration may be laying the foundation for the elimination of all federal funding for public broadcasting. The Administration declined to recommend advance funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides grants for local station operations and national programming. Among other things, the practice of advance funding which has been in place for the past thirty years protects public broadcasting from political abuse.
The Administration also proposes completely eliminating funding for the highly-successful Ready To Teach program, which provides funding for online resources for teachers seeking quality professional development that is easily accessible, flexible and tailored to local, state and national standards. In another section of the Presidents budget, the Administration requests funds to upgrade the skills of tens of thousands of math and science teachers.
The budget also proposes the elimination of targeted grants for the federally-mandated digital conversion of stations, and funding for the satellite interconnection system that distributes PBS and other programming to local public television stations. Lawson said: Its not just ironic, its sad that the Administration wants to eliminate federal support for local public televisions digital conversion at the same time that Congress has set February 17, 2009 for the end of analog broadcasts.
Finally, the budget proposes the elimination of the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP). As Gulf Coast stations struggled to meet local communications needs in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, PTFP was the only source of emergency federal funding to help. Lawson said: The decision to eliminate PTFP is a serious blow to a program that played an indispensable role in Gulf Coast recovery. PTFP is essential, as this program is an investment in public broadcasting stations physical capital, enabling them to deliver expanded programming and services tailored to the needs of local communities.
Lawson said: The cuts, amounting to $157 million, or 30 percent less this year than in FY2006, are devastating. As we did last year, our stations will work together with our supporters across the country to fight these cuts vigorously. In one bright spot for public television, the Administration proposed level funding for the Ready To Learn program at the Department of Education.
Even allowing for breathless hyperbole from a liberal suddenly finding out he'll have to earn his keep in the real world, this statement leaves little wiggle room.
No funding is no funding, not less growth. Hope it stands up, but I'm skeptical.
GREAT! This is certainly a step in the right direction. :-)
Amen to that brother, and cut out NPR funding while they're at it.
The American people paying to keep PBS and NPR on the air makes as much sense as would the Israeli people paying to keep Al Jazeera on the air. If the lefty moonbats have to have their own propaganda network let George Soros pay for it.
Agreed, but with a new face on SCOTUS perhaps the line-item veto may again be on the horizon.
"the budget proposes no federal funding for FY2009"
Oh, dare I dream of such things! For me, it is not that PBS is heavily biased (mucho biased) as much as it is federally funded. I am opposed to state-funded media, period.
Oh please. Why don't you just post that Charlie Brown will kick the football a mile this year?
This is an ELECTION year.
Conservatives are being PANDERED to.
Get real. Open your eyes.
Where is the "Triumph" dog when we need him :-)
In general I agree. But, if you look at the budget, two thirds of it go to entitlement programs. Cutting ten million here and there from NASA, defense, etc., is a drop in the bucket. We can only correct the budget by cutting giveaways/vote buying programs.
You mean like No Child Left Behind or healthcare reform? Oh wait, those are Republican agenda items aren't they? The budget cut again is one half of one percent. And I seriously doubt even that will be cut. This is pandering for votes and nothing else
After five budgets with NO cuts, we now two budgets that cut PBS and call for zero funding for 2009.
Well, better late then never. Lets all hope it happens.
The numbers that I remember back when Newt tried to cut the funding for PBS was in the area of $500 million in revenue for Barney merchandise and about $700 million for Sesame Street. I would like to know how much PBS related merchandise brings in now, especially since there are so many more PBS kids shows that are heavily marketed than in the '90s. I remember that the one of the problems then was that while PBS merchandise produced billions, PBS hardly received any of it because the people in charge wouldn't negotiate contracts similar to what you would find in the private sector. Newt and company wanted to fix that, but I don't know how successful they were.
100%. That's what I thought as I read the headline. Then I read the article, and was sure of it. Any job worth doing is worth doing well!
Well you beat me to it. I was going to say he is 70% short.
Yep, and it needs to be a 100% cut as well.
Because, if it's just 30% (assuming they have the guts to follow through), PBS could survive it and come back to lobby for reinstatement (and more) later on.
If you get serious, get tough, and cut it 100%, after a couple years the parasitic constituency that sucks on the taxpayer teat will have (presumably) moved on to sucking on something else and may not be able to organize and rise up again to steal our money.
Kill it, don't put it on a temporary diet.
Die, Barney, die.
He should hit NPR while he's at it.
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