but er..Mordy, SS has its own budget.. and cannot borrow. what tax revenues comes in is used to pay benefits. and so when the savings are used up, benefits would then have to be cut to match the revenues.. if and when that happens.

so it has nothing to do with balancing the budget. If you want to cut the budget you only have defense and health care.

Why would you talk about social security? It has not added a single cent to the Debt, has its own direct tax base and is working EXACTLY as it is supposed to: build up a surplus while the boomers and then draw down that surplus while they are retired.

SS is not supposed to run at a surplus all the time!

We spend over $1.2 Trillion dollars a year on the military and security.
add in all local police and prison costs you'll find the reason why we are broke:
Paying for the Imperial Police State

I'm not actually advocating the end of Social Security, or any of those three programs; just saying that they make up the bulk of the budget, & if you want to pretend you are going to balance the budget ONLY WITH CUTS, you'll have to start there. Frankly, I'm on team "Tax & Spend," because the alternative argument is "Don't Tax but Spend," & that is stupid.

The Tea Party is "not just Islamophobic, but really xenophobic"? I can't believe anyone would say that! That is just crazy! Those NPR execs should really pretend that the Right Wing isn't targeting them-- acknowledging that out loud is biased! The Republicans are a smart scary bunch-- if something angles against them, then it MUST be an UnAmerican hatchet job. Kill the unions-- they tend to support Democrats! That MUST be UnAmerican!

Again: if you want to talk about the budget, talk to me about military spending, social security, & medicare. If you aren't talking about one of those three things, then you are not in a serious conversation about the budget.

http://nader.org/index.php?/ar...

"The commercial radio and TV stations are the tenants that pay nothing for their 24 hour use of this public property [the airwaves]. You pay more for your auto license than the largest television station in New York pays the Federal Communications Commission for its broadcasting license—which is nothing."

Why not charge these profitable businesses rent for use of the public airwaves and direct some of the ample proceeds to nonprofit public radio and public TV as well as an assortment of audience controlled TV and radio channels that could broadcast what is going on in our country locally, regionally, nationally and internationally?

Now that would be a worthy program for public broadcasting. Get Limbaugh’s and Hannity’s companies off welfare. Want to guess what their listeners think about corporate welfare?

bill won't pass the senate and if it does it will be vetoed. nothing will come of this.

I like to think you are right. The Right Wing is making a concerted effort to target the arts, education, & workers. Making it pretty clear who they consider their enemies.

Should the defunding of NPR have any significant effect on their bottom line, and, therefore, their broadcasting and production abilities, then I hope all of us supporters/listeners who know we should give more regularly will do so. Listener support will be the only way for NPR to continue the kind of high-quality not-for-purchase reporting.
Oh, and I love Car Talk.

Weiner was being sarcastic. Headline is misleading.

sar·don·ic - in a sarcastic manner.

It's really sad that NASCAR is more important than NPR. Republicans have their priorities fucked.

The country is broke beyond human comprehension, the government shouldn't spend a nickel more on anything not in their power to do as per the constitution.

Let NPR compete like other media outlets.

"Let NPR compete like other media outlets."

You mean like the garbage that passes for news on cable/network television? No thanks.

Has this paranoid party nothing better to do right now? NPR doesn't cater to advertisers and as such educates the "public" more than any of the standard radio stations. They are too close to the truth and these "little guys acting tough" (as Homer correctly observed) are running scared. Long live NPR!

NPR in New York constantly goes on and on about its commercial supporters. I think it slants way right and quotes McConnell and Boehner al the time

Republicans are just doing what is in their best interest. NPR and all their rational speak are a direct challenge to the crazy talk that Republicans prefer their constituents eat (and pay for).

NPR have been slowly shifting to the same kind of guilt-by-omission right wing spin as many other major news outlets.

For example, some of their coverage on PfT Bradley Manning has been a little.. unsympathetic, to say the least.

To put it bluntly, the US has no major left-leaning rational-talk news source.

A security analyst indiscriminately releasing classified information does not deserve our sympathy.

Whatever you feel about Manning, the fact remains that he is an unconvicted US citizen being tortured. Unconvicted-- thus innocent, by the legal standard. As an innocent US citizen, I have a vested interest in making sure that innocent US citizens are not tortured.

Even Floyd Abrams thinks Manning should be tried for what he did.

I don't need NPR to be left leaning, I just want to be as objective as possible when reporting the news.