Corporation for Public Broadcasting rallies against Trump’s budget

Hashtags like #JusticeforBigBird and #RightToBearArts gained momentum on social media Thursday after President Trump unveiled his proposed budget, which would defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting ($485 million), the National Endowment for the Arts ($152 million) and the National Endowment for the Humanities ($155 million), along with dozens of other agencies.

“As a rural station, WOUB relies on these funds to ensure that the area continues to have access to news & information, culture, and educational programming, that otherwise would not occur”.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created in 1967 under Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, and provides funding to help support almost 1,500 public radio and television stations across the country including PBS and NPR.

This argument suggests an unfamiliarity with both coal miners and the budget itself-as things now stand, a coal miner making $51,000 a year (roughly the median United States household income) pays about 60 cents in taxes to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

“Trump has seen support for the move on social media too, with the likes of Dan Gainor, an administrator at the Media Research Center, tweeting “#DefundNPR”. The study found that 70% of those who voted for Trump say they would tell their elected representatives to find other places in the budget to save money if asked their opinion about eliminating federal funding for public television.

CPB is the largest single source of funding for public radio, television and related online and mobile services, according to its website.

President Donald Trump released his budget blueprint on Thursday, an effort to prioritize safety and security for the American people while dramatically cutting other agencies considered sacred cows by the left.

An online petition to support federal funding of the arts has already received over 230,000 signatures.

“We are greatly saddened to learn of this proposal for elimination, as N.E.H. has made significant contributions to the public good”. “In addition, a growing number of successful local pilots are demonstrating the abilities of public television stations to significantly enhance emergency communications in rural, suburban and urban America”.

Defunding NPR and PBS became a focal point during the 2012 election when then-Republican candidate Mitt Romney said during a debate: “I’m going to the stop the subsidy to PBS”. Every Republican since President Ronald Reagan has slowly but surely cut money from the two public broadcasting outlets over the years.

Pence, who won the Association of Public Television Stations’ “Champion of Public Broadcasting Award” in 2014, called preserving public television’s funding an “easy call”. But we do have some sense of what the public broadcasting system might look like if the budget passed as Trump has proposed it. That means Congress must pass two budgets over the coming weeks and months: A short-term budget, to fund the federal government from April 29 to September 30, and a long-term budget for the fiscal year that begins in October.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is distinct from both NPR and PBS.

WOUB Public Media receives roughly $1.2 million in Community Service Grants from CPB, about 25% of their overall budget.

CNN explains that the world of public broadcasting does have a “playbook for these fights”, and indeed, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Patricia Harrison also came out with a similar statement.