According to snopes.com, the cut would be $115 million, 23% of the CPB's 
budget. So it's not exactly chump change. And while I agree that this is 
a drop in the bucket and that the defense budget needs to be decreased, 
if we nix every reduction of ONE HUNDRED MILLION dollars because it's 
not enough (!), there's no way to solve the problem. And your response 
does not address the social justice issue I raised.

Matt

Anthony Nicholson wrote:
> I admittedly didn't RTFA on any of the links you sent but... my 
> intuition is that the amount of $$$ we're talking about here is so tiny 
> compared to the billions spent every day on the military as to be 
> insignificant. So, your argument about the deficit growing and other 
> social programs going underfunded might not be the best one...
> 
> ...because it's the war machine and tax cuts, not NPR and PBS, that's 
> truly responsible for school lunches getting cut.
> 
> -anthony
> 
> Matt Rudary wrote:
> 
>> This raises an interesting question -- is the public funding of NPR & 
>> PBS regressive? Take a look at the following statistics about NPR 
>> listeners:
>> http://www.pbcionline.org/gendemnpr.htm
>> http://www.pbcionline.org/gendempbs.htm
>> http://www.kwmu.org/Support/Underwriting/demographics.html
>>
>> NPR listeners and PBS watchers are disproportionately wealthy. In 
>> addition, I note that fund drives are successful in raising operating 
>> costs from listeners (can't find numbers at the moment, but I 
>> understand that a large chunk, if not the majority, of a station's 
>> budget is raised in drives rather than gotten through taxes).
>>
>> Now, I prefer that these stations continue to get financial support 
>> from the government for a purely selfish reason and for a less selfish 
>> one: First, I don't want pledge drives to last any longer than they 
>> currently do, and second, it would be a shame if stations in less 
>> wealthy areas of the country closed down for lack of funds. However, 
>> how do we justify continued funding of services used by (on the 
>> average) wealthy Americans while the deficit continues to grow and 
>> services for the poor are underfunded?
>>
>> Matt
>>
>> Kevin Lochner wrote:
>>
>>> i think this one already went around, just making sure . . .
>>>
>>>
>>>	  Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 01:46:53 -0400 (EDT)
>>>
>>>	  Hi,
>>>
>>>	  Everyone expected House Republicans to give up efforts to
>>>	  kill NPR and PBS after a massive public outcry stopped them
>>>	  last year. But they've just voted to eliminate funding for
>>>	  NPR and PBS -- unbelievably, starting with programs like
>>>	  "Sesame Street."
>>>
>>>	  Public broadcasting would lose nearly a quarter of its
>>>	  federal funding this year. Even worse, all funding would be
>>>	  eliminated in two years--threatening one of the last
>>>	  remaining sources of watchdog journalism.
>>>
>>>	  Sign the petition telling Congress to save NPR and PBS again
>>>	  this year:
>>>
>>>	  http://civic.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/
>>>
>>>	  Last year, millions of us took action to save NPR and PBS,
>>>	  and Congress listened. We can do it again if enough of us
>>>	  sign the petition in time.
>>>
>>>	  This would be the most severe cut in the history of public
>>>	  broadcasting.  The Boston Globe reports the cuts "could force
>>>	  the elimination of some popular PBS and NPR programs." NPR's
>>>	  president expects rural public radio stations may be forced
>>>	  to shut down.
>>>
>>>	  The House and Senate are deciding if public broadcasting will
>>>	  survive, and they need to hear from viewers like you. Sign
>>>	  the petition at:
>>>
>>>	  http://civic.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/
>>>
>>>	  Thanks!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>	  P.S. Read the Boston Globe story on the threat to NPR and PBS
>>>	  at:
>>>
>>>	  http://www.moveon.org/r?r 64
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>