Corporation For Public Broadcasting

Trump Proposal To Eliminate Corporation For Public Broadcasting (PBS And NPR) Must Be Prevented, Best Bargain In Government

Ronald 1 Comment

The total federal government cost for PBS and NPR (Corporation For Public Broadcasting) in the present budget is $495 million, a half billion dollars to promote education, knowledge, public affairs, history, science, culture on television and radio.

Formed in 1965 as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs, PBS and NPR have done great work and deeds for more than a half century.

How much tens of millions of Americans have gained from both PBS and NPR is incalculable.

It only costs $1.65 per person in the federal budget, with both PBS and NPR also asking for and gaining private contributions from millions of Americans, who appreciate the good work it does.

Considering so much wasted money that is spent by the federal government, this half billion dollars is a pittance, well spent and worth sustaining.

It is all part of a plan of conservatives, Republicans, and Donald Trump to promote ignorance, and discourage education, as ignorant people can more easily be controlled.

This is a battle worth fighting, and hopefully, both these valuable contributions to public discourse will be protected, along with the National Endowment For The Arts and the National Endowment For The Humanities, which promotes the arts and humanities in higher education.

Fifty Years Of Corporation For Public Broadcasting, Public Broadcasting System, And National Public Radio, Due To Lyndon B. Johnson!

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The Corporation For Public Broadcasting was signed into law fifty years ago, in 1967, by President Lyndon B. Johnson, with the purpose of providing funding for public television and public radio.

Out of the legislation came the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), and National Public Radio (NPR).

Educational programming, including cultural and entertainment offerings, and investigation of history, science, nature, and news events and analysis, have been offered for a half century.

Children’s shows, including Sesame Street among its offerings, has enlightened the lives of generations of young people.

The American Experience; Nova; Frontline; Charlie Rose; Independent Lens; PBS News Hour; and Washington Week are among the great offerings of PBS.

On NPR, such programming as All Things Considered; Morning Edition; Fresh Air; On Point; and many Music shows are regularly available.

PBS and NPR are a great national treasure, and yet, if it was left up to Donald Trump and the Republican Party, it would be wiped out completely as far as tax support, although the total cost per person is extremely low, presently $455 million out of a $4 trillion national budget.

Each citizen in the United States pays $1.35 toward public broadcasting, a measly amount now in danger from a President who devalues education in a massive manner!

NPR gains 37.4 million listeners, and PBS has 350 stations across the nation. Listeners and watchers contribute about 86 percent of all funding, with federal, state, and local government putting in the additional 14 percent.

Public Media is one of the many gifts that Lyndon B. Johnson gave us, and it is essential to keep this wonderful contribution to our national culture alive and prospering with some government support!

Trump Declaration Of War On The Arts, Humanities, PBS, National Public Radio, And Woodrow Wilson International Center For Scholars

Ronald 5 Comments

Donald Trump’s budget proposal is a declaration of war on the arts, humanities and history, undermining artists, museums, and cultural organizations, although the total budget of all cultural institutions supported by federal money is minuscule, just a few hundred million of 1.1 trillion of total annual discretionary spending, about .0003 percent of the budget.

All the creative work of the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts would be wiped out, and there would also be elimination of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which provides funding for PBS and National Public Radio, and of the Woodrow Wilson International Center For Scholars.

So all funding for cultural and educational institutions would be ended, a repudiation of the value of intellectual pursuits, and closing down agencies that have done so much good for America, opening up the eyes and minds of tens of millions of Americans who were educated by the creative work of intellectuals in all fields of the arts and humanities.

We are seeing the suppression of our institutional memory of knowledge.

This move by Trump would repudiate all the good work done in the arts and humanities by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression via the Works Projects Administration (WPA) to keep the cultural community alive and thriving.

It also is 52 years since Lyndon B. Johnson made a major commitment to culture and the arts, through the establishment by Congress of the NEH, PBS, NEA, and the Wilson Center.

All decent people must fight this anti intellectualism full throttle!