As the House of Representatives continues to unanimously approve of monstrous increases in defense spending, they have decided to completely phase out federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which is a major source of funding for both the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR). The CPB’s federal funding accounts for about 15 percent of the total revenue of America’s public broadcasting. The proposed budget for the CPB in 2006 is $300 million, a 25 percent cut from this year and the House plans to end funding the CPB completely by the end of 2007. While this does not mean the end of public broadcasting in America, the removal of federal funds has some serious repercussions.

When I first read this, I was shocked. How can the federal government end funding on a free public service and why do they only currently fund 15 percent of public broadcasting’s needs? After a few moments, I started to remember seeing various fund-raising drives on the PBS station in Chicago where they would hock Chicago Tour DVDs and Yanni CDs when a person would donate 75 or 100 dollars. While these weekend fundraisers are less annoying than fifteen minutes of commercials every hour, I truly do not think we should have to put up with the fundraisers. Why should private citizens and organizations have to donate their own money to keep local public broadcasting on the air and commercial free?

The cuts put a serious strain on public stations in smaller markets, the markets that may not have access to other non-biased news and commercial-free children’s programming. Many of these smaller affiliates are already in need of more funding and the cuts could bring an unexpected end to their broadcasts. This means that a family in a rural area without cable television or the Internet, which is quite common, would basically lose all access to unbiased news and acceptable programming for children.

PBS is the largest source of news not owned by corporations such as AOL Time Warner and Rupert Murdoch led News Corp. It is also the only commercial-free educational network for children. With rampant and ruthless marketing on other children’s networks such as Nickelodeon, PBS is an oasis for both parents and children. While the republican-led budget committee argues that the cuts are purely out of need and not out of political interest, I must disagree. PBS and NPR have long been targeted by republicans who argue that these networks are part of the liberal-biased media. Even the CPB’s own chairman, Kenneth Tomlinson has gone out of his way to attempt to prove this bias. However, Tomlinson’s attempt failed miserably. Not only do a majority of Americans see public broadcasting as an unbiased source of news, but the CPB was formed for the express purpose of making sure that public broadcasting stayed neutral.ÿMaybe top republican officials just do not enjoy the truth and diversity that is displayed on these stations to match with the diversity in America.

While some say that cuts in the budget are necessary to relieve our massive national deficit, you really do not have to look far to see where cuts are possible. Instead of spending $419 billion on defense, spend $418 billion. America spends more than 15 times as much as China on defense, the world’s third biggest spender. The government continues to tell the American public that we are in danger of terrorist attacks, but I have yet to see any real threats. In addition, if we spent more on education and other fields that would enrich our citizens instead of “defending” them, we might not have such fear and intolerance in America. It’s too bad that education and public broadcasting have fallen so far down on our list of priorities that they will never be as important as tanks and guns.