Remarks on Funding for Public Broadcasting

Mr. Speaker, let me start with a quote from Lyndon Johnson:

“Today we rededicate a part of the airwaves which belong to all the people,” a thing we should always remember, “and we dedicate them for the enlightenment of all the people.”

President Lyndon Johnson spoke these words at the White House ceremony which marked the official creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 1967. Much has changed in the 37 years since then, but in the realm of television, Mr. Speaker, a PBS program that reaches millions of families every day has been the only constant.

PBS programming is first and foremost about children. At a time when so many television networks are wary of producing educational programming because it will not be cost-effective as they define it, PBS stands alone. They are proud to present wonderful programs that teach children how to read, how to share, and how to be tolerant of others. But PBS is not just for children, it is for minds of all ages that seek to question and learn about our world.

PBS has the best documentaries, the best programs about American history and about the new scientific discoveries which are constantly changing our world. There is a reason that Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal, an unabashed conservative, has written that “At its best, at its most thoughtful and intellectually honest and curious, PBS does the kind of work that no other network in America does or will do.” Ms. Noonan wrote this because it is true. And what is most important, PBS programming is free to all.

Big Bird reaches all the children in America, regardless of whether they are in urban or rural areas, regardless of their economic class or whether or not their parents can afford 500 channels of cable, but the majority leadership is speaking out against Big Bird here today and the other great children’s programming. They are speaking out against quality news and arts and entertaining programs that have no other place to call home on television today.

The Labor -HHS appropriations bill we will consider today offers cuts of more than $100 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding. And, all told, this bill imposes a staggering 42 percent cut in funding for PBS this year.

Now, why would the Congress do this? There is only one reason, Mr. Speaker, and that reason is the leadership of this body does not like PBS. In fact, Republicans have been after PBS for years. Ronald Reagan tried to slash CPB funding, so did Newt Gingrich. And now the conservatives have redoubled their efforts.

They claim that PBS is the lapdog of the left. But the notion that PBS is partisan runs against the very grain of what PBS is and what the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was designed to accomplish.

President Johnson stated that CPB was intended to be carefully guarded from government and party control. It will be free, it will be independent, and it will belong to all of our people.

PBS and CPB, therefore, should be neither liberal nor conservative and should instead be honest and objective; and it always has been. The real problem with our friends on the right seems to be confusing intellectually honest and independent programming with so-called liberal bias, simply because they are not espousing their own narrow conservative world view 24 hours a day.

Most Americans, no matter their political persuasion, understood the benefits of hearing views from different perspectives; and they like the idea of truly independent, stimulating public programming. They understand that Big Bird cannot be replaced by 500 channels of cable.

That is why Roper polls taken in 2004 and 2005 found that the people of our country thought that spending money on PBS was the second best use of their tax dollars, right behind the funding of our military.

But the independence of PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is somehow a threat to this Republican leadership. Why else would Kenneth Tomlinson, the new Republican chairman of CPB, attempt to appoint Patricia Harrison as the new head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?

Ms. Harrison is a strange choice for the leader of a broadcasting corporation in as much as she has never even worked in broadcasting. On the other hand, she was at one time the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, and so perhaps her qualifications for the position speak for themselves.

Mr. Tomlinson also felt that such prominent PBS programs such as “NOW,” with Bill Moyers, were liberal in their orientation. He therefore did the honorable thing and hired several ombudsmen to secretly spy on the programs and report on their activity.

And just last week, we learned that in 2004 the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, now firmly under partisan Republican leadership, gave two Republican lobbyists $15,000 and did not tell anybody they had done so.

By the way, Mr. Tomlinson was head of Voice of America, and we understand that Voice of America is to be outsourced to Asia. How do you like that, America? Is this what we have come to, spying on the network that brings us “Sesame Street,” “The Electric Company,” “Captain Kangaroo”? And if so, what is next?

Will we have satellite surveillance of the “Antiques Road Show”? Wire taps in Oscar’s trash can? Are the American people going to allow these same individuals who actively manipulate the media, who have allowed political operatives to pose as journalists in the White House, who have paid commentators and pundits to falsely pose as journalists, to manipulate public opinion?

Are we going to allow them to tell us that now Public Broadcasting is the enemy? I certainly hope and pray not. If there is any doubt that this is their true intention, my fellow Americans, we need look no further than this very bill, approved in a subcommittee where the Republican leadership successfully eliminated funding for PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

As with so many other things in this Congress, they were shamed by the American people into reversing course, but I imagine that the right wing assault on PBS will continue.

President Johnson feared that if placed “in weak or even in irresponsible hands,” public television could generate controversy without understanding, could mislead as well as teach.

It could appeal to passions rather than to reason. That was very far-seeing for President Johnson. Let us not succumb to the misguided partisan passions of the leadership which threaten to destroy this cherished American institution. Let us preserve public networks across our country.

Mr. Speaker, “Sesame Street” teaches children to be fair and just. And we learned that from “Sesame Street,” our children learned it from “Sesame Street,” let us practice it today, and we expect no less from Members of this Congress.