raccoonradio said:
Some are saying the Corp. For Public Broadcasting, taxpayer funded, gives more to public radio than most think. I'm all for private individuals, corporations, and foundations giving to public radio
but not taxpayer funding (though note below about "foundations")
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=220205
Bob, surely you've got a better source than WND, of all places, if you're going to try to sell us this kind of fuzzy math, don't you?
To get to that "23%" figure, the author of the WND piece has to resort to some pretty dubious logic, creating mythical "taxpayer contributions" out of the value of the tax deductions received by donors.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of logical consistency between saying "I'm all for private individuals, corporations and foundations giving to public radio" and then using an invented number based on those gifts to further criticize what you just claimed to support. There is a long history in our nation's tax system of providing tax benefits to encourage charitable giving. It long predates public broadcasting, and it would require some pretty dramatic societal changes to make it go away.
Then the author takes an even bigger leap, trying to count the programming fees paid by local stations as taxpayer money as well. By that same line of logic, then, NSTAR is "taxpayer supported" when WBUR pays its power bill, or Verizon becomes "taxpayer supported" when WGBH pays its phone bill.
And that's not even addressing one of the biggest misconceptions in the piece you linked: Federal money almost never goes to stations without strings attached. It's targeted to - and strictly audited for compliance with - specific programming initiatives or technical projects, generally designed to promote the sorts of educational programs or broadcast service to remote areas that can't be sustained in other ways.