To me, anybody who argues that PBS should be cut loses all credibility as a budget hawk (if they had any to begin with). PBS is an incredibly valuable public-private partnership. For every dollar the federal government spends, two or three listeners listeners voluntarily contribute a dollar of their own money, much of which goes to their local community. Other programs should be looking to public broadcasting as a fi…
From an ideological perspective, the idea of any state-run media is pretty dissonant with my views. Being opposed to the very idea of PBS or anything like it is a totally understandable position. The case for PBS is a pragmatic one: it serves millions of kids everyday and supplies unrivaled public educational programming, for what most would consider a very reasonable public expenditure. I completely agree that other…
Re: Save PBS. It makes us safer
#101I certainly believe people who say they want to cut PBS simply because they don't like it, or don't see it as the government's province. But in the context of trying to balance the federal budget over time, PBS is beyond a micro-optimiziation (if, indeed, it would not actually backfire in the long term). I'm willing to assume that anyone who puts it on their shortlist is being disingenuous about their motives.