In Defense of Public Broadcasting Part 1

Funding for Public Broadcasting is up on the chopping block. Many Republican Representatives in favor of removal of funding argue that cutting all funding will save the U.S. tax payer money for an unneeded item. We would disagree that Public Broadcasting is an unneeded item with its 170 million monthly users. Compared to the U.S. Census numbers of 310 million Americans, Public Broadcasting is used by fifty-five percent of the population. We think that it would be hard to find another item that fifty-five percent of the population uses.

Over thirty Representatives want to eliminate funding and the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. They believe that Public Broadcasting should not be in existence or federally funded. To put this in prospective, Public Broadcasting reaches 99% of public households compared to cable or satellite services, which only cover about 33% of all households. People that do not have the means to pay for television programming of the Discovery Channel can turn to the quality programming of their local PBS station.

Public Broadcasting is a great source for information, educational entertainment, documentaries and local events. Shows like Nova, Nature, Bill Moyers Journal, News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and Frontline. These shows provide new information to a vast public audience. Educational entertainment come from Sesame Street, Word Girl, Barney, and Clifford the Big Red Dog. These shows teach children at a young age skills that they will need the rest of their life. One story in particular comes from Andy Dehnart in an audio essay for All Things Considered in November of 2009. Dehnart could apply the lessons that he had learned from Sesame Street into real life. There are very few shows where life lessons taught to children at the age of 4 that can be applied at 40. Another item is the documentaries that Public Broadcasting helps produce and distribute. In addition to Frontline, Nature, and American Experience; there are the documentaries done by Ken Burns which include Baseball, The War, The Civil War, and Lewis and Clark Expedition. Finally the local programming, is a very important aspect of Public Broadcasting. Local news, entertainment, state issues, and even athletic events were covered by their local Public Broadcasting stations. In all reality your PBS station can cover all your needs, especially now with the splitting of the signal into three channels. We have only covered the tip of the iceberg in the great programming of PBS and the importance that it plays in society.

Overall, society has benefited from Public Broadcasting. The withdrawal of funding from it will hurt future generations of Americans. This funding is needed and should be protected. There are other areas of spending that could handle a cut, but Public Broadcasting is not one of them.


Tomorrow I will cover the importance of National Public Radio and the reason for the assault on Public Broadcasting.

Do People Really Want Healthcare Repeal?

*Author's Note: Due to the shooting in Arizona this post was postponed like the upcoming repeal vote. We think this information is important and this issue needs to be addressed. Our hopes and prayers are with people are recovering from the shooting and the families that lost love ones on Saturday.

It has been the goal of the Republican Party to repeal the Health care bill as soon as they arrived into power. The second bill that the Republican House brought up H.R.2 ,Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act, to repeal the current Health care law. Today is the day that the House will vote on this bill.  It will be interesting to see how many Republicans will defect from their parties vote.

According to Mother Jones looking at the January 16, 2011 Washington Post/ABC Poll show at a glance 45% in favor of the bill and 50% not in favor of the bill. The kicker with this is that 13% of the 50% did not think the bill went far enough. In reality that means 58% were in favor while only 37% were not in favor of the bill. Granted the 13% are not happy with the bill, but they are glad that it is there. To show the support of the bill  only 1 in 4 people favor repeal of the bill according to AP-GFK Poll. Overall, the Health care law should not be repealed.The benefits of the law are favorable enough that even polls show people favor this law after they know what is in it.

From a budget perspective repeal is horrible. If repeal passes it will cost us 320 billion dollars over ten years, unlike if the bill still stays in effect which would save us 149 billion dollars over 10 years. That is roughly a half of a trillion dollars in difference between repeal and keeping the law. That is a huge difference. We are talking about 1/26th of all U.S. debt difference.  Money alone shows that this law should be kept.

Overall, we believe that the Health care law should be kept instead of repealed. The benefits law are far better than its imperfections or the process of creating the law. It is in our best interest to improve this law and move forward instead of backwards.

*Updated  The House of Representatives have passed H.R. 2 by the vote of  245 to 189. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has made a statement that H.R. 2 will not be considered in the Senate. Without the Senate voting on the bill it is practically dead.  The only way the House Republicans can stop the Health care bill is by defunding it. That battle will come later on. For more information go to CSPAN website

Six Dead and Eighteen Shot at Arizona Democratic Congresswomen's Cracker Barrel

Today at about 10 a.m. Mountain Time in a North Tucson Safeway during Representative Gifford's Cracker barrel a gunman, Jared Loughner of Tucson, open fire on the Giffords and the crowd. In Loughner's shooting spree he killed 6 people including Federal Judge John Roll, and 18 people were wounded including Representative Giffords.  Most of the wounded are in critical condition, but hopefully they will all recover.

Now many areas of the web both sides are trying to pin the shooting on different political identities. The more Liberal blogs like Talking Points Memo have pointed out to the web and rhetoric of the shooter matches some of the rhetoric of the Tea Party. While some Conservative blogs like Red State argue that their rhetoric had nothing to do with this and that we will find out that the shooter was a leftist radical.  Both sides are trying to use this as a smear on the other side, but also giving their condolences. It is sad in America today that each side uses a tragic incident like this as political leverage against the other side.

Outlets like Fox News and Tea Party pundits like Sara Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Glenn Beck are the easiest to blame in this situation because their rhetoric is often includes violent language that excites people. They are not to blame for this shooting. All current signs show that they did not influence the young man that committed this crime. The problem though it has been the aim of Conservative pundits to use violent language in exciting their base. If you go to a Tea Party or watch Fox News you will see throughout the day a reference of revolutionary violence either against the 111th Congress or the Presidential administration. Television leaders like Sara Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Glenn Beck help stoke the conspiracy theories by playing them out or creating new ones.  When people believe in conspiracy theories, they start to morph fiction into reality.

Now Liberals are not out of the woods on this one yet. The shooters was not a Tea Party member and had a broad reading list. The overall theme of the list was anti-government not anti-Democrat or anti-President Obama. Talking Points Memo interviewed the Tucson Tea Party and their spokesperson Allyson Miller, said,"she knows the members of her tea party, who she called "reasonable individuals" closer to her age of 55 than the suspected shooter's 22." Yes the Tea Party's average age according to a February 2010 CNN Poll is closer to 55 than 22, but that does not mean the rhetoric only stays with people around the age of 55.  That is the problem today.

The rhetoric used by Politicians, Pundits, and Everyday people is to the extreme. We as Americans now do not hash our differences out now at a coffee table or at a cafe, but with loud speakers and weird signs. Both sides have started an arms race in who can go to the furthest extreme and have the most followers. This is madness. John Stewart was correct in having his Rally to Restore Sanity. By doing that he showed that their are sane people, and they want a voice in government. For us to survive as a country we need to stop the insane rhetoric and to talk to each other as human beings. We need not to call names, but buy each other coffee. If we do that we can bring back civil discourse back to the United States and accomplish something.  If we do not, we could see more of these tragic events. My suggestion to all of you is to by your political opposite a cup of coffee and find some common ground.

House Republican Promises can be Tracked

Now that the Republicans have control of the House of Representative, it should be our job to know their agenda and how they are going to implement it. Now instead of reading the Pledge to America, we have found all fifty promises on on PolitiFact.com from the St. Petersburg Times. I hope you all look at this link and then call your congressional representative if you agree or disagree with the Republicans plan. It should be an interesting two years. Enjoy!