Republican Push to Defund NPR fails

[marmar]

WASHINGTON -- The Republican campaign to take away all federal funding from National Public Radio (NPR) was over before it began, with GOP lawmakers' procedural trick to force a vote on the issue failing on Thursday. It was the first GOP-ordered House vote since the election.

The proposal to defund NPR was the latest winning item on the Republicans' gimmicky YouCut site, which allows the public to pick the cuts they would like to see receive an up-or-down vote on the House floor. In order to get these votes, they try to make a procedural vote on an unrelated piece of legislation the vote on the YouCut item.

"This week's winning YouCut proposal is sponsored by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), and would terminate all taxpayer funding of National Public Radio (NPR), saving taxpayers potentially tens of millions of -- perhaps even over a hundred million -- dollars," read a release from Rep. Eric Cantor's (R-Va.) office. "Implementing this initiative would signal that the days of bailing out irresponsible decision-makers at taxpayers' expense are over. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/18/republican-defund-npr-fails_n_785453.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. They'll try again in January . . . .

[AlinPA]

2. And will they will be successful.

[maxsolomon]

3. eventually they'll succeed

facts, even watered-down bipartisan facts like those NPR has pandered for the last 10 years, are threatening to their power. hell, just letting GOP legislators lie at length on the air is threatening to their power - they sound a. nuts or b. like liars.

that's not to mention when you interview their supporters at length...

if they want to hold the federal budget hostage to eliminating NPA & the NEA, they can defund it.

[gratuitous]

4. They don't want to defund NPR

And the savings wouldn't amount to diddly/squat anyway. They're just grandstanding for their base making a 100% futile gesture that they know won't succeed simply to throw some red meat to the partisans, who are too stupid to know that they're being played.

Except for the being played part, I have to say that I wouldn't mind the Democrats making partisan, futile gestures from time to time, just to point out the differences between the two parties, and having the salutary effect of energizing the base.

[GSLevel9]

12. Precisely... Nt

[Kalyke]

5. So the general public can vote on this YouCut site?

Uhhh... does that mean that DU can go over there and start voting to have them reduce military spending on contractors, cut their salaries and chop the GLBA and replace it with something more Glass-Steagally?

[DCKit]

10. You can only vote "yes" for their proposals.

You'd have to submit an idea to the site, and cutting the military budget isn't ever going to be one of the choices.

[Kalyke]

11. Oh... so it's not really for "us" to choose - it's what they

want to cut and we can only pick one of their dumb-ass ideas.

Got it.

[Iris]

6. "potentially tens of millions -- perhaps even a hundred million -- dollars"

wtf? It can't be that hard to get actual numbers for this. I seriously doubt even "tens of millions" is close to being accurate, much less "a hundred million"

[no_hypocrisy]

7. NJ Govenor Christie just fired the entire staff of NJN, the public TV station of NJ.

45 day notice and he's not going to pay them severance which is contractually mandated.

http://www.nj.com/opinion/times/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-1/129006275175930.xml&coll=5

[fascisthunter]

8. PR crap.... they just want NPR to slide more to the right

[bluedigger]

9. This time.