zappasguitar
Well-known member
How many of my tax dollars go to NPR?
NPR receives no direct funding from the federal government. Less than two percent of the budget is derived from competitive grants from federally funded organizations such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Science Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts.
HOW NPR IS ACTUALLY FUNDED (HINT: NOT HOW YOU MIGHT THINK)
Every time NPR makes a controversial decision, some unhappy people demand the federal government cut its funding.
This time, it's former Govs. Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — paid Fox News contributors --who are jumping to the defense of Juan Williams after his unceremonious firing.
In an open letter to President Obama, Palin writes:
NPR is unable to tolerate an honest debate about an issue as important as Islamic terrorism, then it's time for "National Public Radio" to become "National Private Radio." It's time for Congress to defund this organization.
And Huckabee, in a statement provided to CNN, says:
It is time for the taxpayers to start making cuts to federal spending, and I encourage the new Congress to start with NPR.
And now the AP reports:
In response to the firing, South Carolina Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint planned to introduce legislation to end federal funding for NPR, his spokesman Wesley Denton said Thursday night. Denton said the senator would expand upon his proposal in a statement on Friday.
Thing is, NPR receives no direct funding from the federal government for operations. NPR provides a breakdown of its funding sources on its website. You can view a breakdown in the slideshow.
The largest share of NPR funding comes from its member stations in local towns like yours.
The local stations receive some funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a taxpayer-funded, nonprofit, private corporation, created by Congress in 1967.
NPR does receive grants from CPB for special projects, but that funding is not included as part of the network's operations budget.
So while federal dollars do flow to NPR, the connection is indirect. It may be a fine point, but it's an important distinction. The federal government can't "defund" NPR. What Congress can do is cut CPB funding --which has diminished over the years and has, at times, been threatened.
But those CPB funds play a minor role for stations in larger cities like New York, Chicago, Dallas, St. Louis San Diego and so on. However, CPB funds represent a much higher percentage for a station in smaller cities in rural states like Wyoming, Nebraska and Idaho.
Calls to cut taxpayer funding of CPB would mostly hurt small stations --stations that played no part in the decision to fire Juan Williams.
Last year's CPB funding was $400 million, which equates to about $1.33 for every man woman and child in America.
According to NPR's 2009 annual financial statement, they received about $100 million in grants and fees. Assuming 60 percent of that originated as CPB fees, then the average per-person-funding is a whopping 20 cents!
Local stations choose to purchase NPR content, or not. If they don't, then NPR gets no direct or indirect federal funds from that station. If you have a problem with this, then encourage your local station not to buy NPR content. That's where your protest should go; that's what Palin, Huckabee, DeMint and others should be arguing.
You can still make the argument that Congress shouldn't fund the CPB, but that will leave big markets still able to purchase NPR content while smaller markets will suffer. If you're OK with that, fine. And yes, that will hurt NPR to a certain extent. However, I don't think this can be called a "shell game": NPR is not federally funded.
http://www.examiner.com/populist-in-national/how-npr-is-actually-funded-hint-not-how-you-think
