The House of Representatives voted 216-213 on Thursday night to approve $9 billion in spending cuts, including $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – representing the entirety of two years’ worth of federal funding for NPR and PBS.
Passage by the Republican-controlled House sends the bill on to the president’s desk for signing.
Katherine Maher, President and CEO of NPR, immediately slammed the unusual congressional move as an “unwarranted dismantling of beloved local civic institutions, and an act of Congress that disregards the public will.”
“Two-thirds of Americans support federal funding for public media, and believe that it is a good value for taxpayer dollars,” Maher said. “Americans listen to their local NPR stations daily, watch their favorite PBS shows loyally, raise their children on educational television, and listen to music stations that showcase the best of our home-grown music traditions.”
The Senate had voted 51-48 on Wednesday to cut the already-approved spending, which also cuts $8 billion from foreign aid, including to the U.S. Agency for International Development and programs for global health and refugee assistance. The Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, was spared a $400 million cut in a concession to win the votes of Republican senators who objected to cutting the popular Bush-era funding.
The White House requested the package, which as passed both chambers with only Republican votes – including some who publicly voiced their concerns about gutting public media. Two Republicans representatives, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Michael Turner of Ohio, opposed the measure in the House, while Republicans Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska also voted against it. Democrats were unified in both chambers.
The $1.1 billion for the CPB is the full amount it was due to receive over the next two years. The White House has criticized the public media system as biased and unnecessary, and sought earlier this year to terminate its board members, including Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman and two others.
The CPB distributes the bulk of the funds to more than 1,500 public TV and radio stations, with the rest going to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
NPR and PBS are expected to weather the cuts, as only a small percentage of their funding comes from taxpayers. But the cuts will force programming and headcount reductions at many local stations as soon as this fall, with some public stations receiving as much as half of their overall budgets from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
“Supporters of defunding are fixated on NPR and PBS, but in reality the cuts will be felt where these services are needed most,” Maher said. “Stations in places like West Virginia, and those serving tribal nations, receive more than 50% of their budget from federal funding. Public radio provides local programming that would otherwise be unavailable — coverage of town councils, statehouse affairs, local elections, and local music.”
