A Taxpayer’s Look at Freedom

In some quarters, the fury rages. That President Donald Trump’s commitment to end taxpayer support for government media is a lot more than a budget cut isn’t lost on the left. So ingrained into the American psyche are PBS and NPR that it almost seems un-American to withhold funding for President Lyndon Johnson’s brainchild.

Ending Taxpayer Support

As James Feeman notes in his column in the WSJ, this is a philosophical reassertion of freedom. Even if you are among those upset, you can relax, though, he suggests.

PBS and NPR will survive and thrive. This may be the best boost in years to their funding campaigns. The media landscape is vast. The First Amendment is vibrant. And we have a president who seems, at least this time, to have remembered government’s role in the realms of information, ideas, opinions, artistic judgments, and entertainment: Get out of the way.

In the Daily Economy, Walter Donway recently wondered,

… how can the government, forbidden to “establish” a church or to censor speech, presume to establish a taxpayer-supported broadcasting system? This system, unsurprisingly, soon became the voice of the political establishment, offering a consistent narrative in favor of more government action, government programs, and government solutions…

The issue is freedom: free minds, free judgments, freely expressed opinions, and freedom in interpreting and reporting events. Freedom means no government supervision, no subsidies, and no anointed “public” channels.

Wholly Independent, Except for Funding?

Mr. Donway continues by discussing the origins of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting:

Of course, the architects of the CPB knew that they must evade the First Amendment. Thus, Congress structured and funded the CPB as a “private nonprofit corporation” wholly independent of the federal government. It forbade “any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting.”

Government cannot spend tax dollars decade after decade and disclaim responsibility for the quality of what they buy. Or rather, it can disclaim responsibility only as long as criticism remains muted. Executives of public television and radio know that. They know, too, that the government still holds the purse strings and that their future depends upon keeping the politicians happy.

What Will Change

Can we expect that government returns to a constitutional role well known all along, even by the advocates of public funding — protecting freedom of speech, not subsidizing one source of speech?

No media outlet should be “the elect” of Washington. No broadcaster should be elevated as the official voice of “the public.” In a free country, the people, through millions of choices made freely, determine what interests them, educates them, and inspires them. For a significant segment, it is PBS and NPR.

That makes Trump’s decision to end taxpayer support for government media far more than a budget cut. It is a philosophical reassertion of freedom.

So, relax. PBS and NPR will survive and thrive. This may be the best boost in years to their funding campaigns. The media landscape is vast.

The First Amendment is vibrant. And we have a president who seems, at least this time, to have remembered government’s role in the realms of information, ideas, opinions, artistic judgments, and entertainment: Get out of the way.