Defund NPR

NPR should never have been on the government teat. In paring down government it is one of the low-hanging fruit. It's disgusting that it wasn't done under Reagan or Bush 41 or Bush 43. I consider this to be one of the tests of the so-called new Republican leadership: "get rid of NPR, defund it." It is not the role of government to support a radio station.

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Article I, Section 8

NPR repeatedly states that government funding is a small percentage of their budget. Well that's good, it won't be difficult to replace the funding.

As a "radical", "extremist" fascist   right-winger   tea-partier classical liberal I would also defund the CPB. It's not that I find fault with CPB or its politics it's that, as a proper extremist, I like to be consistent. IF it's not the government's role to fund TV stations then that applies to ALL publicly funded TV stations.

To clarify, it's not because of NPR's politics, or the firing of Juan Williams, or the idiotic statement of Vivian Schiller that Juan Williams should have kept his feelings about Muslims between himself and "his psychiatrist or his publicist:" it's because funding of radio stations is not the role of government.

The Juan Williams fiasco brings NPR to the forefront and makes this a convenient time to, once again, push for its defunding.

UPDATE: 10/25/2010

An interesting point is raised by Seth Lipsky in his article The Real Case for Defunding NPR

My quarrel with government subsidies to NPR—via grants from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting—is that they cast a chill over the markets in which private entrepreneurs seek to raise capital for what might be called highbrow journalism. It is hard to quantify this. But it is a conclusion that I have reached after more than two decades spent seeking to raise capital for privately-owned publications competing in this arena.

More than once I have been interrupted, while singing the song of quality journalism to a potential investor, to be asked, "Isn't this already being done by public broadcasting?"

This is one more of the many reasons that we shouldn't have government funding of NPR. But the core of the issue is that this isn't something that government should be doing.