This week and next week, the House Appropriations Committee will be deciding whether or not to cut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which just happens to fund one of my favorite things in life: National Public Radio.

Initially, they were going to cut $115 million but now they have reduced that to a cut of $95 million. This still eliminates several NPR programs, including their initiative to help fund a transition to digital radio and two early learning programs, Ready to Learn and Ready to Teach. In addition, the committee has not made a commitment to fund the CPB in the future, which is unusual and could mean a complete cut of funding in 2009.

There was a similar attempt to drastically cut funding to public radio last year, but a huge swell of grassroots support put a stop to it. It sounds like that will be necessary again this year.

So, I plan to email my representative today, and I encourage anyone reading this to do the same.

For more info:

tellthempublicmatters.org
LA Times article

Oh, and I know there's that annoying, years-old email forward that goes around about cuts to NPR. This is the real thing, not a ghost in cyberspace.

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