Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1076, Prohibiting Federal Funding of National Public Radio

Floor Speech

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There are really two questions that this bill raises. The first: Is this a way to deal with the serious problem we have in this country, which is the deficit? And the answer is: It isn't.

I salute the Republicans in this Congress for focusing attention on the need to restore fiscal balance. You are right. But the plan you are pursuing to receive it is dead wrong. You cannot, by cutting 12 percent of the budget, the non-defense discretionary budget, achieve the fiscal balance that we need. And why you have a plan where you attack Vermont Public Radio, where you attack Planned Parenthood, where you attack home heating assistance, but you leave exempt tax expenditures for oil companies, a swollen Pentagon budget, that means that this is not going to succeed. Even if we wiped out the entire non-defense discretionary budget, we would still have a deficit of $1 trillion. So, serious budget cutters have a serious plan that puts everything on the table.

Secondly, why have a proposal that destroys institutions? Vermont Public Radio is the link between 251 towns, cities, and villages in the State of Vermont. Farmers listen to it in their barns. Parents listen to it on their way to bringing their kids to school. People at work listen to it for the weather reports, and it welds together the political discussion in the State of Vermont which is vibrant, which is varied, which has people with different points of view having a common reference point. Public radio is an institution that allows democracy to thrive.

And why do we have to have a budget plan that, A, by it's design, will fail; and, B, by its application and implementation, will destroy institutions that democracy depends on? Vermont Public Radio is an essential institution to all of the people in the State of Vermont: Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. We need to preserve it.

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