NPR and PBS Act
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Rep. Jackson, Ronny [R-TX-13]
ID: J000304
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Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the intellectually-challenged geniuses in Congress. HR 2443, the "NPR and PBS Act," is a laughable attempt to eliminate taxpayer funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. Because, you know, those evil left-wing propaganda machines are just too darn expensive.
Let's dissect this farce:
**Diagnosis:** Acute case of ideological myopia with symptoms of partisan posturing and fiscal hypocrisy.
The bill's sponsors claim they're trying to eliminate "partisan broadcasting outlets" (read: anything that doesn't parrot their own talking points). But the real disease here is a bad case of "Deficit Attention Disorder." The total funding amounts and budget allocations are conveniently absent from the bill, because who needs transparency when you're grandstanding?
**Key programs and agencies receiving funds:** None. This bill is all about taking away money, not allocating it.
**Notable increases or decreases:** A whopping 100% decrease in funding for NPR and PBS! Because, clearly, these organizations are the sole reason for our nation's fiscal woes.
**Riders or policy provisions attached to funding:** Ah, but here's where things get interesting. The bill includes a cleverly worded provision that would prohibit federal funds from being used to support any organization "described in subsection (b)." Translation: if you're an NPR or PBS affiliate, don't even think about using federal funds for anything, lest you face the wrath of these congressional geniuses.
**Fiscal impact and deficit implications:** Oh boy, this is where the comedy really begins. By eliminating funding for NPR and PBS, our intrepid lawmakers claim they'll be saving a whopping $445 million annually. That's roughly 0.01% of the federal budget. I'm sure the fiscal hawks in Congress will be thrilled to know that their bold move will reduce the national debt by a staggering 0.0003%.
In conclusion, HR 2443 is a textbook example of legislative malpractice. It's a cynical attempt to score cheap political points while ignoring the real issues plaguing our nation. These politicians are like med students who can't even be bothered to read the patient's chart before prescribing a treatment that will only make things worse.
**Prescription:** A healthy dose of skepticism, a strong stomach for hypocrisy, and a crash course in basic economics.
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 246 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING Mike Gonzalez Every Republican President since Richard Nixon has tried to strip the Corpora- tion for Public Broadcasting (CPB) of taxpayer funding. That is significant not just because it means that for half a century, Republican Presidents have failed to accomplish what they set out to do, but also because Nixon was the first President in office when National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which the CPB funds, went on air. In other words, all Republican Presidents have recognized that public funding of domestic broadcasts is a mistake. As a 35-year-old lawyer in the Nixon White House, one Antonin Scalia warned that conservatives were being “confronted with a long-range problem of significant social consequences—that is, the development of a government-funded broadcast system similar to the BBC.”47 All of which means that the next conservative President must finally get this done and do it despite opposition from congressional members of his own party if necessary. To stop public funding is good policy and good politics. The reason is simple: President Lyndon Johnson may have pledged in 1967 that public broadcasting would become “a vital public resource to enrich our homes, educate our families and to provide assistance to our classrooms,”48 but public broadcasting immediately became a liberal forum for public affairs and journalism. Not only is the federal government trillions of dollars in debt and unable to afford the more than half a billion dollars squandered on leftist opinion each year, but the government should not be compelling the conservative half of the country to pay for the suppression of its own views. As Thomas Jefferson put it, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagations of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.”49 A DEMONSTRATED PATTERN OF BIAS Conservatives will thus reward a President who eliminates this tyrannical sit- uation. PBS and NPR do not even bother to run programming that would attract conservatives. As Pew Research demonstrated in 2014, 25 percent of PBS’s audi- ence is “mostly liberal,” and 35 percent is “consistently liberal.” That is 60 percent liberal compared to 15 percent conservative (11 percent “mostly conservative” and 4 percent “consistently conservative”).50 NPR’s audience is even to the Left of that, with 67 percent liberal (41 percent “consistently liberal” and 26 percent “mostly liberal”), compared with 12 percent conservative (3 percent and 9 percent “consistently conservative” and “mostly con- servative,” respectively).51 That may be an acceptable business model for MSNBC or CNN, but not for a taxpayer-subsidized broadcaster. — 247 — Media Agencies: Corporation for Public Broadcasting DEFUNDING THROUGH THE BUDGETARY PROCESS Cutting off the CPB is logistically easy. The solution lies in the budgetary process. In 2022, the CPB submitted to the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittees of the House and Senate Appro- priations Committees its budget justification for fiscal year (FY) 2023. In it, the CPB requested that Congress give it a $565 million advance appropriation—a $40 million increase compared to its FY 2022 funding.52 Unlike most other agencies, the CPB receives advance appropriations that provide them with funding two years ahead of time, which insulates the agency from Congress’s power of the purse and oversight. This special budgetary treatment is unjustified and should be ended. The 47th President can just tell the Congress—through the budget he proposes and through personal contact—that he will not sign an appropriations spending bill that contains a penny for the CPB. The President may have to use the bully pulpit, as NPR and PBS have teams of lobbyists who have convinced enough Members of Congress to save their bacon every time their taxpayer subsidies have been at risk since the Nixon era. Defunding CPB would by no means cause NPR or PBS—or other public broad- casters that benefit from CPB funding, including the even-further-to-the Left Pacifica Radio and American Public Media—to file for bankruptcy. The mem- bership model that the CPB uses, along with the funding from corporations and foundations that it also receives, would allow these broadcasters to continue to thrive. As George Will wrote, “If ‘Sesame Street’ programming were put up for auction, the danger would be of getting trampled by the stampede of potential bidders.”53 Indeed, “Sesame Street” is on HBO now, which shows its potential as a money earner. PUBLIC INTEREST VS. PRIVILEGE Stripping public funding would, of course, mean that NPR, PBS, Pacifica Radio, and the other leftist broadcasters would be shorn of the presumption that they act in the public interest and receive the privileges that often accompany so acting. They should no longer, for example, be qualified as noncommercial education sta- tions (NCE stations), which they clearly no longer are. NPR, Pacifica, and the other radio ventures have zero claim on an educational function (the original purpose for which they were created by President Johnson), and the percentage of on-air programming that PBS devotes to educational endeavors such as “Sesame Street” (programs that are themselves biased to the Left) is small. Being an NCE comes with benefits. The Federal Communications Commis- sion, for example, reserves the 20 stations at the lower end of the radio frequency (between 88 and 108 MHz on the FM band) for NCEs. The FCC says that “only noncommercial educational radio stations are licensed in the 88–92 MHz ‘reserved’ band,” while both commercial and noncommercial educational stations may
Introduction
— 248 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise operate in the “non-reserved” band.54 This confers advantages, as lower-frequency stations can be heard farther away and are easier to find as they lie on the left end of the radio dial (figuratively as well as ideologically). The FCC also exempts NCE stations from licensing fees. It says that “Noncom- mercial educational (NCE) FM station licensees and full service NCE television broadcast station licensees are exempt from paying regulatory fees, provided that these stations operate solely on an NCE basis.”55 NPR and PBS stations are in reality no longer noncommercial, as they run ads in everything but name for their sponsors. They are also noneducational. The next President should instruct the FCC to exclude the stations affiliated with PBS and NPR from the NCE denomination and the privileges that come with it. — 249 — Media Agencies ENDNOTES 1. U.S. Agency for Global Media, https://www.usagm.gov/ (accessed March 20, 2023). 2. Ben Weingarten, “Security Failures USG Media Agency Prove Need to Hire Americans First,” Newsweek, August 10, 2020, https://www.newsweek.com/security-failures-usg-media-Agency-prove-need-hire- americans-first-opinion-1523895 (accessed March 20, 2023). 3. U.S. Agency for Global Media, “Who We Are,” https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-are/history/ (accessed March 20, 2023). 4. U.S. Agency for Global Media, “Voice of America,” https://www.usagm.gov/networks/voa/ (accessed March 20, 2023). 5. Daniel Lippman, “Deleted Biden Video Sets Off a Crisis at Voice of America,” Politico July 30, 2020, https:// www.politico.com/news/2020/07/30/deleted-biden-video-sets-off-a-crisis-at-voice-of-america-388571 (accessed March 20, 2023). 6. U.S. Agency for Global Media, “Office of Cuba Broadcasting,” https://www.usagm.gov/networks/ocb/ (accessed March 20, 2023). 7. Rafael Bernal, “Bipartisan Group Asks Office of Cuba Broadcasting to Rescind Layoffs,” September 13, 2022, The Hill, https://thehill.com/latino/3641445-bipartisan-group-asks-office-of-cuba-broadcasting-to-rescind- layoffs/ (accessed March 20, 2023). 8. U.S. Agency for Global Media, “Middle East Broadcasting Networks,” https://www.usagm.gov/networks/mbn/ (accessed March 20, 2023). 9. U.S. Agency for Global Media, Consolidation Report, p. 13, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/ FA00/20210930/114085/HMKP-117-FA00-20210930-SD002.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023). 10. U.S. Agency for Global Media, “Radio Free Asia,” https://www.usagm.gov/networks/rfa/ (accessed March 20, 2023). 11. U.S. Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, Office of the Inspector General, Audit of Radio Free Asia Expenditures, June 2015, https://www.stateoig.gov/uploads/report/report_pdf_file/aud-fm- ib-15-24_1.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023). 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid., p. 16. 14. Susan Crabtree, “‘Lax’ Internet Freedom Group Balks at New Pack Oversight,” https://www.realclearpolitics. com/articles/2020/08/24/lax_internet_freedom_group_balks_at_new_pack_oversight_144043.html (accessed March 22, 2023). 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Nomination of Michael Pack to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, 116th Cong., 2nd Sess. (2020), https:// www.congress.gov/nomination/116th-congress/1590 (accessed March 20, 2023). 18. James Robbins, “More Rot at America’s Public Diplomacy Mouthpiece,” The Hill, November 7, 2020, https:// thehill.com/opinion/national-security/524924-more-rot-at-americas-public-diplomacy-mouthpiece/ (accessed March 20, 2023). 19. U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Suitability Agency Executive Programs, Follow Up Review of U.S. Agency for Global Media, July 2020, https://bbgwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/OPM-SuitEA- July-2020.pdf (accessed March 20, 203). 20. If the agency were not an extension of U.S. foreign policy and national security goals, then its staffing positions would not be classified in their entirety as Tier 3 and Tier 5 national-security sensitive positions, which they are. See U.S. Agency for Global Media, Consolidation Report, p. 13. 21. Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 115 (June 15, 2020), pp. 36150–36153. 22. U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (“Smith–Mundt Act”), Public Law 80–402. 23. Jessica Jerreat, “USAGM CEO Criticized Over Move to Rescind Firewall Regulation,” October 28, 2020, https:// www.voanews.com/a/usa_usagm-ceo-criticized-over-move-rescind-firewall-regulation/6197671.html (accessed March 20, 2023). 24. Byron York, “America’s Lost Voice,” Washington Examiner, February 4, 2021, https://www.washingtonexaminer. com/politics/americas-lost-voice (accessed March 20, 2023).
Introduction
— 248 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise operate in the “non-reserved” band.54 This confers advantages, as lower-frequency stations can be heard farther away and are easier to find as they lie on the left end of the radio dial (figuratively as well as ideologically). The FCC also exempts NCE stations from licensing fees. It says that “Noncom- mercial educational (NCE) FM station licensees and full service NCE television broadcast station licensees are exempt from paying regulatory fees, provided that these stations operate solely on an NCE basis.”55 NPR and PBS stations are in reality no longer noncommercial, as they run ads in everything but name for their sponsors. They are also noneducational. The next President should instruct the FCC to exclude the stations affiliated with PBS and NPR from the NCE denomination and the privileges that come with it.
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.