Take Back PBS - the cheap way!

Oh, Buster! What a bad, BAD little bunny you have been, hanging around with lesbian maple farmers and all the rest. My my my! It's enough to make PBS executives withdraw your episode from broadcast, or as Center For American Progress put it...

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings condemned the once-celebrated PBS show, "Postcards with Buster," because a not-yet-aired episode involved an 11-year-old girl with two mommies. That was merely the latest in the Bush administration's attempts to control content and enforce conservative themes at the station. Fearful the right wing will continue to impinge on the channel's independence, children's television advocates are calling for a new funding model based on a "national trust fund or endowment [that] would allow PBS to be free of the whims of the White House."

Mitchell maintains the "Postcards" controversy has nothing to do with her decision to leave, but the episode was indicative of the political wrangling that has complicated her job at PBS. Mitchell originally signaled she was "comfortable" with the episode in question, but according to PBS spokesman Lea Sloan, she changed her mind " after conversations with a number of PBS stations and 'national leadership.'" Asked who among the "national leadership" had contacted Mitchell, "Sloan named John Lawson, who lobbies for public TV stations on the Hill." Lawson, besides being CEO of the Association of Public Television Stations, is Spellings's brother-in-law. His role in the controversy suggests a direct conflict of interest: Lawson is supposed to advocate for public television stations, but has a family connection with media censors in the Bush administration.

The problem is not limited to cartoons or children’s programming. PBS is one of few remaining sources of trustworthy news and thoughtful commentary, and this too is being eroded from the top. You might notice that “Now” was cut down to 1/2 an hour after Bill Moyers retired. Also neocon Tucker Carlson and Paul Gigot of the WSJ Editorial Page now have magazine-format shows in key spots. One way to fight this trend, as we've discussed on this blog before, is to organize and pool our PBS subscription dollars and conduct a conditional giving campaign at our local PBS stations. Pool a few thousand dollars and give it as a leadership subscription to the station on the condition that they schedule neocon commentary to off-peak hours, and program more progressive viewpoints more often. It's the most effective way to take back PBS, but it requires mass amouts of organization and cash.

Another way to fight, though, is to adapt another Rightie technique… file “profanity and indecency” complaints with the FCC on Carlson and Gigot. Every time one of them lies, insults a progressive idea or figure, or patronizes a guest, send the FCC an e-mail about it. The even have a convenient form to use…

http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cib/fcc475.cfm

It’s fun, it’s easy, and… it’s the law!

David Corn on the Bush Budget

George W. Bush released a budget today that he claims is responsible, honest, and designed to cut the $400 billion-plus deficit in half by 2009. Not so. By now, you probably have heard the obvious criticisms. The budget does not include the $80 billion Bush is asking for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (And that probably won't cover the full tab.) It doesn't account for the $1 trillion to $2 trillion that Bush needs to pay for the private investment accounts he wants to carve out of Social Security. It also doesn't recognize that several hundred billion dollars will disappear from the revenue stream when the government rejiggers the alternative minimum tax--which it must--to prevent this tax (written to apply to corporations that make creative use of loopholes) from hitting middle-class individual tax filers.

There are few secrets about Bush's budgetary shenanigans. While the military gets a hefty boost, housing, education and environmental protection gets hammered. Every advocacy group concerned with federal spending was issuing press releases today. Folks on Capitol Hill were doing the same. Senator Jim Jeffords, the Republican-turned-independent from Vermont, put out a short list of the worst of Bush's proposed cuts. Here it is:

* Environment. Cuts the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget by 5.6 percent from $8.02 billion to $7.57 billion, culminating in an almost 10 percent cut over two years. Most cuts come in efforts to maintain and improve the nation's clean water infrastructure.

* Veterans. More than doubles the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using the Veterans health care system.

* Health Care. Cuts Medicaid funding by $45 billion over 10 years and eliminates 28 health programs, totaling $1.36 billion. These programs range from rural hospital grants (cuts $39.5 million) to emergency medical services for children (cuts $20 million).

* Job Training. Cuts federal spending on job training by a half-billion dollars. Federal job training programs, including dislocated-worker training, will be cut by $200 million. Federal aid to states for job training, including funding to train veterans, will be cut by $300 million.

* Amtrak. Eliminates all funding for Amtrak, calling bankruptcy proceedings as the solution for our nation's rail system.

* Low Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP). Cuts LIHEAP by over 8 percent, from $2.2 billion to $2 billion.

* Parks. Cuts the National Park Service by 3 percent from $2.31 billion to $2.24 billion.

The Bush White House defends its cuts, claiming it is targeting programs that don't work. Could it be that the Bushies are right? That those darn bureaucrats running the clean water programs at the EPA are flushing taxpayer dollars down the drain? Perhaps. But here's the thing: if Bush is not being honest about the macro dimensions of his budget--and he's not--then how can he be trusted on the details? Short answer: he cannot. I am willing to believe waste and unnecessary spending can be found throughout government. Maybe even at the Pentagon. (Gosh, no!) But I am not willing to hand the scalpel to Bush and his lieutenants when they spin numbers and refuse to acknowledge the true budgetary problems that they have caused and overseen.