By Chris Powell
Why shouldn’t the Corporation for Public Broadcasting be able to survive without the $500 million subsidy it has been getting every year from the federal government, a subsidy President Trump and the narrow Republican majority in Congress have just taken away?
Why all the hungry children? And raises devour rehabilitation money
Will Connecticut keep fighting immigration law enforcement?
Connecticut’s racial gap in education is actually a welfare problem
Most of that money has been distributed to the corporation’s local affiliates of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System, like the Connecticut Public broadcasting operation, which has been getting $2 million per year. That’s less than 10% of Connecticut Public’s revenue and the network plans to cover the loss through more fundraising.
Maybe some budget cuts will be required at Connecticut Public, but as this column reported in May, Connecticut Public has plenty of room to economize, with its chairman, Mark G. Contreras, being paid an annual salary of more than $600,000 and with 10 other officers and executives being paid between $204,000 and $321,000. These salaries are more like government.
But despite the recent controversy over public broadcasting’s finances, Connecticut Public seems never to have reported its own extravagant salaries. That’s not so “public.”
The controversy over the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR, and PBS has centered on their leftist bias in news and general programming. They deny it but unpersuasively so, since nearly all Democrats love NPR and PBS and nearly all Republicans hate it.
Two years ago when Connecticut state government, an overwhelmingly Democratic regime, gave Connecticut Public a grant of $3.1 million to renovate its headquarters, it wasn’t because Connecticut Public had been so critical of the regime. It was because Connecticut Public was so supportive of what the regime purports to stand for.
Indeed, Connecticut Public long has been the voice of political correctness.
But public broadcasting’s leftist bias isn’t its biggest problem. Public broadcasting’s biggest problem is that it would be compromised by its huge subsidy from the government even if it wasn’t overwhelmingly biased toward one side or the other politically.
Privately owned television and radio stations, newspapers, and news-oriented internet sites survive without financing from government, though for various reasons, including public education’s determined dumbing down of the population, the news business has gotten much harder lately. Privately owned news organizations find themselves competing with NPR and PBS not just for audience but for advertising as well. (Advertising on NPR and PBS takes the form of announcements thanking corporations and foundations for their donations.)
Competition with government is seldom fair to the private sector.
Government at all levels — federal, state, and municipal — is full of publicists. (Indeed, Connecticut now may have more government publicists than private-sector news reporters.) Government also does a lot of advertising. Since government can rely on taxes for revenue, it always has the resources to get its message out on its own. So public broadcasting is not the necessity its advocates claim it to be.
Of course public broadcasting does some good things. But if they are good enough they should be able to find public support without government subsidy. To make up for that subsidy, the good things might command more candid and lucrative advertising.
More emphatic appeals by public broadcasting for donations might be successful, especially if they are combined with those of the Democratic state and national committees.
NOT JUST BILLIONAIRES: Democrats in Connecticut and nationally have been shrieking that the new Republican federal spending and tax law is going to help only millionaires and billionaires.
But the National Association of Realtors reported last week that the new law will provide a huge tax break to 18% of Connecticut’s homeowners — people whose municipal property taxes exceed $10,000, the current limit for property tax deductibility from federal income taxes. The new law raises deductibility to $40,000.
Even residents of impoverished Bridgeport will share in the increased tax break, since 39% of the city’s homeowners pay more than $10,000 in property taxes.
Increasing the federal tax exemption may not be good policy. Given the soaring federal deficit, no tax breaks may be good policy. But at least this one exposes Democratic demagoguery.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
Chris Powell column 
How many NPR stations can I receive in eastern Connecticut? There are at least four Connecticut member stations. And Eastern Connecticut State University broadcasts NPR news. And a station in Amherst, Mass. Then, of course, there is their internet streaming service. These are all broadcasting the same point of view.
It was great when I could listen to “Car Talk” on Saturday morning, and once upon a time there was Robert J. Lurtzema with “Morning Pro Musica.” Now it is talk radio interviews and women talking about great recipes and any social injustice they can discover anywhere in the world.
To quote Miss Jean Brodie: “For those who like that sort of thing,” she said in her best Edinburgh voice, “that is the sort of thing they like.”
LikeLike