Saturday, November 13, 2010
Taxpayers Provide More Than 25 Percent of NPR's Funding, Analyst Says
This article doesn't have the importance of other articles but is still interesting never the less. This talks about how NPR(National Public Radio) get 25% of its 165 million dollar budget from us the Tax Payers. I don't know about you but I feel like roughly 43 million could be spent elsewhere in the economy other then on a radio station, I'm not saying cut them all together but in these tough times do you really think spending that much for a radio station is a good allocation of tax payers money?
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6 comments:
This article just presents the view of an analyst, a conservative one eve. We don't if it's true. It's just another speculation like Obama's $200 mil/day trip without actual proof and data. Of course it would be ridiculous if this story was true but from a rational point of view, I don't see the motivation behind the government for funding NPR.
I think we would all be surprised what our tax-dollars go towards. NPR used to be funded primarily by the federal government, so I do believe that 25% of NPR's budget comes from taxpayers. There are plenty of wasted tax-dollar projects like the pork barreling we've discussed in class - it seems like the time is ripe to go through the government's budget and cut out the nonsense. I, for one, am fine with some tax money going towards NPR - I wouldn't want early morning drives to be accompanied by listening to that darn "rap" those kids listen to nowadays.
I also support the funding of NPR. While there are some problems of bias with having media outlets funded by the government, I think that NPR is one of the more legitimate sources of media these days. A good number of the stories they produce are overlooked by private media firms because the costs are too high. I for one appreciate NPR in the morning, especially over any other radio news...
I would definitely agree - NPR provides a vital public service. Democracy and market economies both rely heavily on the assumption of perfect information. While this exists no where in the real world, NPR goes a long way towards providing political and economic agents important information which improves overall functioning. It provides far more than $43 m of benefit to taxpayers if utilized properly.
I agree that the expenses why pay for this is way too high. During these trying times one of the last things we need is NPR. Though millions of people get their news and entertainment from NPR a $165 million dollar budget seems quite steep. I feel like $100 million of that could be spent on helping to build infrastructure or helping out with one of the other economic issues USA has now.
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