House committee voted to halve funding to public broadcasting -- cuts that are so drastic that they will decimate public television and radio stations
Congress has turned a deaf ear to the public and taken the next step to unplug PBS and NPR. Last night, a House committee voted to halve funding for public broadcasting -- cuts that are so drastic that they will decimate public television and radio stations across the country. We stand to lose the educational, news and cultural programs that Americans trust above all others.
In the past week, nearly one million Americans have signed petitions to stop Congress from taking this action against PBS, NPR and other public media. Tens of thousands more have joined mass call-ins urging representatives to restore funding. But our elected officials have ignored the outcry.
It’s time we pried open the doors of power and demanded to be heard. Free Press is taking this campaign beyond point-and-click petitions directly into the chambers of Congress. It is with your personal stories that we guarantee that politicians WILL take notice:
Write a letter about what public broadcasting means to you.
In your letter, tell your representative how public broadcasting is a vital resource for you personally. Let politicians know that they can no longer ignore public support of public broadcasting. Free Press will hand deliver your letter directly to your congressperson.
Read some of the letters already on their way to Congress.
The proposed cuts go before the full House as early as Tuesday. Your representative needs to hear from you right now:
Write your representative and tell him or her to listen to the public and restore full funding.
Together, we can stop Congress before it devastates America's public broadcasting.
Please forward this message to your friends, family, colleagues and neighbors and ask them to write their own stories about public broadcasting. Thousands of letters are needed today.
I wrote the following letter to my congressman. Maybe I was a little too angry at the end by threatening his continued employment as my congressman, but I think I got the point across:
I have learned that a committee in the House has just voted to cut in half the funding to PBS and NPR. For my small children, my wife and I depend upon PBS for child-friendly children’s programming that is not filled with the violence and mature subject matter that can be found on the other channels. I watch Nova and other intellectually stimulating programming with my family that cannot be found on the commercial stations which insist on showing mostly reality programs and CSI: Fill In The City Name! I enjoy listening to NPR; not only the news programming but also the discussions on books and culture and topics that cannot be found elsewhere on the broadcast spectrum. Let’s be frank. The reason these politicians voted to cut PBS and NPR funding in half is because neither will morph into a Fox News clone that echoes the White House’s daily talking points. We don’t need more Fox News Channel wanabes on the air. Certainly not ones paid for with our tax dollars. Recently Congress awarded the city of Anchorage, Alaska $1.5 Million for a bus stop. The problem was Anchorage couldn’t begin to spend that much money on a bus stop. It was more than 50 times the amount of money they could possibly spend on the project! It was pork barrel spending at its worst! You want to know why the American people view Congress with the greatest contempt and disgust in history? Because you take funding away from worthwhile projects like public broadcasting and you give it to projects that have no need for the amount of money you do appropriate. We your constituents are very happy with the current programming on PBS and NBR and will be very unhappy if this programming suffers because of the disconnected attitudes of politicians in Washington who don’t care what we their constituents think! I urge you to do everything you can to halt this halving of PBS and NPR funding before the American People decide to cut our current crop of congressmen. We are very angry!!!!! And we WILL take our anger to the voting booths in 2006 unless it is diminished by some right behavior on the part of Congress before then. Killing this plan to halve PBS and NPR’s budgets can help to allay this anger! Thank you for your time.
In the past week, nearly one million Americans have signed petitions to stop Congress from taking this action against PBS, NPR and other public media. Tens of thousands more have joined mass call-ins urging representatives to restore funding. But our elected officials have ignored the outcry.
It’s time we pried open the doors of power and demanded to be heard. Free Press is taking this campaign beyond point-and-click petitions directly into the chambers of Congress. It is with your personal stories that we guarantee that politicians WILL take notice:
Write a letter about what public broadcasting means to you.
In your letter, tell your representative how public broadcasting is a vital resource for you personally. Let politicians know that they can no longer ignore public support of public broadcasting. Free Press will hand deliver your letter directly to your congressperson.
Read some of the letters already on their way to Congress.
The proposed cuts go before the full House as early as Tuesday. Your representative needs to hear from you right now:
Write your representative and tell him or her to listen to the public and restore full funding.
Together, we can stop Congress before it devastates America's public broadcasting.
Please forward this message to your friends, family, colleagues and neighbors and ask them to write their own stories about public broadcasting. Thousands of letters are needed today.
I wrote the following letter to my congressman. Maybe I was a little too angry at the end by threatening his continued employment as my congressman, but I think I got the point across:
-----------------------------------------
I have learned that a committee in the House has just voted to cut in half the funding to PBS and NPR. For my small children, my wife and I depend upon PBS for child-friendly children’s programming that is not filled with the violence and mature subject matter that can be found on the other channels. I watch Nova and other intellectually stimulating programming with my family that cannot be found on the commercial stations which insist on showing mostly reality programs and CSI: Fill In The City Name! I enjoy listening to NPR; not only the news programming but also the discussions on books and culture and topics that cannot be found elsewhere on the broadcast spectrum. Let’s be frank. The reason these politicians voted to cut PBS and NPR funding in half is because neither will morph into a Fox News clone that echoes the White House’s daily talking points. We don’t need more Fox News Channel wanabes on the air. Certainly not ones paid for with our tax dollars. Recently Congress awarded the city of Anchorage, Alaska $1.5 Million for a bus stop. The problem was Anchorage couldn’t begin to spend that much money on a bus stop. It was more than 50 times the amount of money they could possibly spend on the project! It was pork barrel spending at its worst! You want to know why the American people view Congress with the greatest contempt and disgust in history? Because you take funding away from worthwhile projects like public broadcasting and you give it to projects that have no need for the amount of money you do appropriate. We your constituents are very happy with the current programming on PBS and NBR and will be very unhappy if this programming suffers because of the disconnected attitudes of politicians in Washington who don’t care what we their constituents think! I urge you to do everything you can to halt this halving of PBS and NPR funding before the American People decide to cut our current crop of congressmen. We are very angry!!!!! And we WILL take our anger to the voting booths in 2006 unless it is diminished by some right behavior on the part of Congress before then. Killing this plan to halve PBS and NPR’s budgets can help to allay this anger! Thank you for your time.
posted by Joe | 6/20/2005 06:03:00 AM
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