01-24-2017, 12:40 AM
(01-23-2017, 09:06 PM)Maggot Wrote: PBS funding is next. Just sayin. They play commercials now anyways. But this is a 1st amendment thread.
Well, there's no doubt that Paul Ryan will try to cut federal funding for public television and public radio; he and Romney proposed doing it when they ran in 2012 and he still supports defunding it.
Personally, I doubt Trump gives a shit one way or the other about educational and cultural programming for children, the elderly and others. And, it's a relatively small amount of money in the overall federal budget (10 times less than the U.S. hands Israel for defense every year).
Whether Trump himself gets behind a likely congressional proposal to cut it will depend on whether he feels like currying favor with Ryan and company or instead feels like defying them, in my opinion.
I like PBS and NPR. And, in some rural areas, the public broadcasts are still all that's available to residents, or one of very few options. Those areas would also have more trouble switching to advertiser and donor funding only. So, I hope PBS and NPR remain untouched.
But, that's not nearly as important to me as executive and congressional proposals/actions to restrict people's constitutional and human rights.