This will not happen. Republicans don't reduce the size of government.
If the Republicans take control of both houses of Congress and cut off funding to NPR, I will shave my head.
NPR's government slop is as safe as the gold in Fort Knox.
Republicans don't cut anything.
They don't reduce the size of anything.
They take their turn behind the wheel of the car, keeping it going in the same direction, but stop at different restaurants, tourist traps, and hotels. But they change nothing that matters.
This was inevitable, in more ways than one. Jim DeMint has announced that he will introduce a bill to strip all funding from NPR and PBS:
Conservative Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina today announced plans to introduce legislation stripping federal funding from National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.The Juan Williams controversy provided a catalyst, but this issue would have arisen anyway. The GOP needs to find ways to cut costs, and the funds for public broadcasting would have eventually come under the knife, and sooner rather than later. Republicans have paid lip service to conservative complaints over federal subsidies to PBS and NPR for decades but have never had the nerve to cut funds, especially when the GOP tried the “compassionate conservative” approach and grew government everywhere else.
The move comes following the firing of NPR contributor Juan Williams for comments about Muslims. Williams said among other things that he gets “nervous” when he sees Muslims on his airplane flights.
The firing prompted calls from Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and others on the right to strip NPR of funding, and now DeMint, who is beloved in the Tea Party movement despite his Senate perch, has taken up the call.
“Once again we find the only free speech liberals support is the speech with which they agree. The incident with Mr. Williams shows that NPR is not concerned about providing the listening public with an honest debate of today’s issues, but rather with promoting a one-sided liberal agenda,” he said in a statement.
And if they find the Testicular Fortitude to do it this time, I'll shave my head. And if they're not willing to cut funding to something as blatantly partisan as NPR, they're not going to cut anything.
This is a Moment Of Truth. And if they cut off NPR, I'll shave my head.
Jim DeMint is a girly-man. My remaining hair is safe.
The monies involved are not exactly minimal, but won’t balance the budget, either. DeMint’s statement references the $4 billion spent by the US on PBS and NPR over the last nine years, which works out to something less than $500 million each year on average. DeMint wisely casts this as just a small piece of right-sizing the federal government and reinstituting the proper boundaries and priorities in a Constitutional context.
In one sense, this may not be the best context in which to raise the issue, although certainly NPR gave about as big of an opening as one could imagine.
Yep. It's a perfect opening, but they aren't going to take it. REPUBLICANS DON'T CUT THINGS. THEY GROW THINGS. IT'S MORE FUN TO BE IN CONTROL WHEN THE SPENDING IS INCREASING. And if the Republicans cut off funding to NPR, I'll shave my head.
The real issues at hand are the fact that we simply can’t afford to fund feel-good arts programs any longer while we rack up huge amounts of debt, and more importantly, that public broadcasting is an anachronism — and has been for at least two decades. In an era with 200 channels readily available on cable and plenty of over-the-air broadcast content, the government doesn’t need to provide subsidies for entertainment based on the predilections of bureaucrats in Washington. In fact, there is an even better question within that issue: should the government in a free society ever have funded news channels in the first place?
Update: Eric Cantor will add the option to the House Republican’s YouCut website:
House Republicans announced Friday they would take action that could force a vote on defunding NPR in the wake of the firing of news analyst Juan Williams.
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said that he is adding a measure to defund the publicly subsidized radio network to the conference’s “YouCut” program, which allows the public to vote online on spending programs they want cut. Williams was axed by NPR on Wednesday for comments he made about Muslims, drawing the ire of Republican leaders. …
“In light of their rash decision, we will include termination of federal funding for NPR as an option in the YouCut program so that Americans can let it be known whether they want their dollars going to that organization,” he said.
If the Republicans take control of both houses of Congress and cut off funding to NPR, I will shave my head. Republicans do not cut things. They don't reduce the size of government. They just take their turn driving the car, and keep it going in the same direction.
If the Republicans cut off funding to NPR, I repeat, I will shave my head.
Vote for every Libertarian candidate you can in November. They'll shut it down like a dying K-Mart.
2 comments:
Your hair is safe for more reasons than one.
Republicans are likely only to take the House. The Senate is a dwindling long shot. So, if they take the House and pass a bill to cut off NPR funding and all their colleagues in the minorty of the Senate do so, will you shave your head?
If they get a bill through both houses of Congress and Obama vetoes it, will you shave your head?
Or will you say that they passed the bill knowing it will never become law? If so, then your haircut likely has a long wait.
Whether we like the health care bill or not, few people would have given it one chance in a thousand if you asked them two years ago. The feds cut off funding to the Daughters of the Confederacy which had been funded continuously for generations, all because one senator opposed it. Stranger things have happened than this modest proposal.
If, as they say, most NPR funding comes from other than federal sources, this should be an easy political cut for both parties. The Demon Rats pulled the Big Bird defense last time. NPR's got what protecting them: Lake Wobegone?
Republicans just have to roll the NPR cut into some bill Obama wants, and it's history. The only reason I can see them keeping it is much bigger fish to fry.
BTW, where's the gloating over the Rangers? Their bats were so hot against Yankee pitching. See, if prayer doesn't work you have to pray harder, longer, more often, and more sincerely.
So who do you want to see in the WS? If it's the Giants, then we can have another duel.
Threats are easy, follow-through is hard, but it seems there's finally substantial momentum behind a third party if the Reps don't turn Obamarama around, including repealing Obamacare. If they just sit on their butts for two years, they may find themselves out for good.
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