The Nacilbupera Guzzle

Whoever examines with attention the history of the dearths and famines … will find, I believe, that a dearth never has arisen from any combination among the inland dealers in corn, nor from any other cause but a real scarcity, occasioned sometimes perhaps, and in some particular places, by the waste of war, but in by far the greatest number of cases by the fault of the seasons; and that a famine has never arisen from any other cause but the violence of government attempting, by improper means, to remedy the inconveniences of a dearth. (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations IV.5.44)

Thursday, October 21, 2010

How Much Does Government Fund NPR?

In light of last night's unjust firing of liberal commentator Juan Williams at NPR (FoxNews), it is appropriate to examine just how many public dollars NPR is soaking up. At first glance, it seems a modest 5.8% of funding comes from the government (see graph below taken from the NPR website):

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If we dig a bit deeper into the pie, we find more public funding. The CPB or Corporation for Public Broadcasting funds 10.1% of NPR. In turn, the CPB gets roughly 15% of its funding from federal governments and 25% from state and local governments (NPR funding report). That translates into 40% of CPB funding from the government. Forty percent of the 10.1% translates into an additional four percent of NPR's total pie coming from government sources.

But public funding doesn't stop there. Consider the "University" slice: certainly huge amounts of public money go to fund our public universities to directly provide education for its students. Since it is impossible to break down what percentage of "University" money is considered public, how about NPR simply returns the money back to the universities to help lower tuition or build buildings? There is certainly no need for one public entity to fund another.

Thus if NPR wants to completely public defund itself, NPR needs to eliminate:

5.8% in direct governmental funding
4.0% in governmental funding through CPB
13.6% in university funding
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23.4% in total public funding

In an era of neverending waste, we call upon all levels of government to defund NPR and put it towards reducing debt.

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