Op-Ed: James Erwin: How Republicans can defund NPR

A step-by-step plan to defund NPR, brought to you by James Erwin.

Taxpayers should not be required to fund a news outlet. As I testified to the House Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations in May, state-funded media outlets have no place in a free society.

Yet Americans have been stuck subsidizing National Public Radio (NPR) since 1970. A grand total of $28 billion has been shoveled at the radio network, even as it has run stories as deranged as how the names of bird species are racist and a justification of looting.

The fact that consumers have an endless supply of high-quality podcasts not subsidized by the taxpayer renders NPR unnecessary. The fact that NPR is a taxpayer-funded propaganda machine for the Democratic Party, staffed with left-wing ideologues, makes any Republican voting to fund it downright masochistic.

Republicans could completely defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in a reconciliation package next year. CPB is requesting $565 million for the next fiscal year — over a decade, that’s $5 billion dollars in tax cuts you’ve paid for.

Some Republicans will object, citing the CPB talking point that over 70 percent of funding goes to affiliates stations, not the national outlets. In fact, NPR claims that only about 1 percent of its funding comes from taxpayers.

If this is true, Republicans should cut 30 percent of CPB’s budget outright and include a rider that restricts tax dollars to keeping affiliates afloat in rural markets. But this would be a half measure because of the shell game that launders taxpayer funding for NPR through affiliates.

Officially, 31 percent of NPR’s funding comes from licensing fees paid by affiliates. These stations receive $128 million in federal grants annually. Affiliates are required to keep track of how much of their federal grants end up back with NPR, but a 2011 GAO audit of 29 stations found that the majority did not maintain these records. There has been no significant audit since.

If they won’t defund NPR completely, Republicans have two options in a reconciliation package. They can cut CPB’s topline and include a stipulation that affiliates may not use their CPB grants to pay licensing fees to NPR. They can also defund NPR through the tax code by prohibiting any federal funding for NPR and include a new box on tax returns for taxpayers to make a voluntary donation, similar to the Presidential Elections Fund.

Democrats will object to a voluntary contribution because of threats to democracy, or whatever. But reasonable people will agree that taxpayers should volunteer their money for a media outlet like NPR. In this compromise, NPR is still getting hundreds of millions of dollars in free advertising by having their fundraising appeal mailed to every taxpayer in America, and Republican voters will no longer have to pay for a radio station that regards them with disgust.

It is the bare minimum Republicans can do with a trifecta, for their own sake as well as their constituents’. If they fail to act given the opportunity next year, they will have funded another decade of propaganda for the other party with our taxes.

James Erwin works on telecommunications and tech issues for Americans for Tax Reform and is Executive Director of Digital Liberty.