President Trump will seek to eliminate government funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the budget blueprint he is announcing Thursday.
Once again, Big Bird faces having to go it alone.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney confirmed Wednesday that the president’s budget request for fiscal 2018 would aim to end funding for the CPB, which gives money to PBS, National Public Radio and other public media.
“The policy is that we’re ending federal involvement with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” Mulvaney told reporters.
The budget wouldn’t immediately zero out funding for public news because of existing contracts, he said. Instead, it would eliminate it over several years.
In a statement, CPB president Patricia Harrison said that there “is no viable substitute for federal funding that ensures Americans have universal access to public media’s educational and informational programming and services. The elimination of federal funding to CPB would initially devastate and ultimately destroy public media’s role in early childhood education, public safety, connecting citizens to our history, and promoting civil discussions — all for Americans in both rural and urban communities.”
Even with Trump’s proposal, it is far from a done deal that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will lose its federal funding, which amounted to $485 million in fiscal 2016.
Trump’s budget proposal is just a request to Congress. It is up to Congress to pass legislation authorizing spending. With 60 votes required in the Senate to overcome a filibuster, Republicans will have to get Democratic support for spending measures, and Democrats support public broadcasting.
Republicans have tried and failed to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the past.
In the 1990s, House Speaker Newt Gingrich sought to zero out funding for public broadcasting, but didn’t succeed.
More recently, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012 pledged to eliminate funding for the CPB.
“I like PBS. I love Big Bird,” Romney memorably quipped in his first debate with President Obama. “But I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it.”
A 2011 survey conducted by Hart Research and American Viewpoint found strong bipartisan support for funding of public broadcasting.
This post was updated to include a statement from CPB president Patricia Harrison.
