Trump budget would devastate public broadcasting, local stations say

Is there any reason to think the outcome will be different this time around?

With the budget proposal submitted by the Trump Administration, backers of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Public Radio, National Endowment for the Arts and PBS are literally freaking out and trying to deceive the public to continue support.

CPB received $445 million in federal funding in the last fiscal year, the NEA and NEH got about $148 million each, a tiny portion of the roughly $4 trillion federal budget.

If the agency was eliminated, we would not only lose the Community Service Grant funds, but we would need to raise additional funds to cover our share of other expenses the CPB now pays for – the satellite system, music rights and more. While CPB funding represents about nine percent of MPT’s annual budget, some stations (particularly in rural areas) depend on their annual grant for 50 percent or more of their budget.

WFYI President and CEO Lloyd Wright said in a statement that the cut is a misguided attempt to help reduce the federal deficit. “It’s an existential question for many of them”.

Actors and artists took to social media to denounce the proposed budget cuts. And we can’t be tough if we destroy institutions that earn our trust, as public broadcasting has, again and again.

After years in public broadcasting, this isn’t the first time Crutchfield has seen proposed cuts.

The total budget for both endowments is about $300 million, which, when combined with CPB’s budget of about $450 million amounts to less than.02% of the annual federal budget.

During a presidential debate in 2012, former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney famously said that he would eliminate PBS’ funding if he was elected president.

CPB is too Big Bird to fail, apparently, despite the fact that the justification for having a public broadcasting network in the age of 1,000 channels on cable makes zero sense.

The CPB is preparing to fight the budget cuts just as they’ve had to do in the past. It’s a program that conservatives have labeled a corporate welfare program.

Costs for public broadcasting are tiny and the shares of it paid by the people Mulvaney referenced are absurdly small. But for local public TV stations, they make up a large part of operating funds. “But we’re prepared to defend ourselves”.

Though the funding will not likely eliminate PBS and NPR, which get only a small percentage of their funds from the federal government, it will nearly certainly impact local public radio and television stations.

But members of Congress should do themselves a favor and listen to the voices of their constituents instead of cozying up to the administration and its ill-advised plan to silence NPR and PBS. As an essential resource to Georgians, GPB provides the citizens of our state and neighboring states with lifelong learning experiences, balanced, unbiased news and information and trusted children’s programming. The real power lies with the Senate and House Appropriations Committees.

Holding up CPB next to an already bloated defense budget (that Trump plans to bloat still further) and say one is a necessary cost while the other is unjustifiable is ridiculous.

West Virginia: Trump’s budget would eliminate the Chemical Safety Board, the federal agency that investigated the 2014 chemical spill outside Charleston that left 300,000 people without drinking water for five days.