The President's Attack on Public Broadcasting Puts Him at Odds with the American People

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On March 16, the president proposed eliminating all federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a main revenue source for hundreds of local NPR and PBS stations across the country. The CPB’s $445 million cut amounts to just 0.04 percent of the $1.1 trillion of total annual discretionary spending in the president’s proposal — or approximately $1.35 per person. Seen through another lens, that $445 million amounts to little more than 2 percent of the total cost of Trump’s proposed Mexican border wall — estimated at $21.6 billion by the Department of Homeland Security.

Groups like the Free Press Action Fund and millions of people across the country will fight to save the CPB. A 2017 poll rated PBS and its 350 member stations as the most-trusted nationally known institution. Survey respondents also rated the federal funding that supports PBS as taxpayer money “well spent.” Public and community media are treasured local institutions that are far more popular than Congress or this president.


The President's Attack on Public Broadcasting Puts Him at Odds with the American People