Earlier today, I noted Sen. Jim DeMint’s announcement that he plans to introduce legislation to defund both NPR and PBS. While I agree that they should both be defunded, as several commenters remarked, politically speaking, it would probably be easier to pass a standalone bill to defund NPR.
The problem with targeting PBS is that it’s easy for liberals to portray Republicans as bad guys who want to kill Big Bird and Elmo — which people have warm associations with. I can’t imagine that targeting NPR would create as many PR problems for Republicans. Especially given that NPR only depends on government funding for a small percentage of its budget.
