To: The United States House of Representatives and The United States Senate
Stop the Romney PBS/NPR/NEA/NEH Insanity!
Congress should not require National Public Radio or the Public Broadcasting System to sell commercial advertising, as such a move would permit the incursion of corporate influence into the public broadcasting arena. In addition, Congress should not require the National Endowments for the Arts or Humanities to solicit funds from the nation's already stressed non-profit sector. These ideas, currently being proposed by Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, should be dismissed.
Why is this important?
Dear MoveOn Members:
This morning's news: Mitt Romney now proposes to that organizations like National Public Radio (NPR), PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities be funded through paid advertisements and through private support from charities, exclusively. The facts are: 1) paid advertising goes completely against the intent and spirit of NPR and PBS and is the principal reason that programming on NPR and PBS remains relatively free from corporate influence. It can be argued that such influence would cause many worthwhile programs to evaporate due to corporate influence; 2) the nation's charities already give generously to NPR and PBS, while federal funds support the NEA and NEH. To ask our nation's already stressed charities to additionally fund work that, in many instances, they are ALREADY funding, is outrageous; and 3) the combined budgets of all FOUR of these organizations is a very, very small portion of the federal budget. Before we talk about cuts to these organizations, Gov. Romney, let's talk about cuts to the military and the many, many questionable subsidies and tax breaks given to any number of industries in this country.