[FREEBEACON] Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn (Colo.) has introduced a bill to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which includes National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)."The national debt is over $22 trillion. The federal government cannot continue unconstitutional spending to subsidize media programs that are majority privately funded," the congressman said in a blurb.
Lamborn claims that NPR and PBS have "shown increasing bias in sensitive political and social issues." He cites the recent PBS episode of the children's show Arthur, which featured a same-sex wedding. Alabama Public Television and the Arkansas Educational Television Network both refused to air the episode.
"The Constitution does not grant the federal government the authority to subsidize media programming. Not only is this funding unconstitutional and wasteful, but it has also violated the conscience rights of many conservative and religious Americans," Lamborn said, "American taxpayers subsidized the CPB, the parent organization to PBS and NPR, to the tune of $445 million annually for the last two fiscal years."