RUSH: Randy in Syracuse. Hello, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. I want to thank you. You are a daily source of inspiration to myself and my friends here in the frozen area of central New York.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. I truly appreciate that.
CALLER: My comment is the following: Within the past week there’s been a push by the local radio and TV stations here to keep Republicans in Congress from defunding NPR and PBS. I’d like to know how you feel about it, and I’d also like to know if maybe the EIB Network should put in for a grant from the government just for the sake of fairness.
RUSH: (laughing) Here’s the difference: I wouldn’t want a grant. The difference is I would not want a grant, and I wouldn’t want whatever level of accountability or involvement from the government came with it. Let’s be honest. PBS, NPR, what have you, the truth of the matter is that if any of these liberal networks could make it in the free market, they wouldn’t need these subsidies. They wouldn’t need to be part of a federal Corporation or Public Broadcasting. Yet they can’t make it in the free market, at least not on the radio side. So they need these subsidies, and they need all the assistance they can get. If they had to get by with market support, i.e., audience and advertiser support… Well, I think even they realize they can’t. They don’t want to go that way. And there is this presumption that they are unique and special and a cut above, they’re elites; and as such their voices need to be heard, and it’s perfectly natural the government would subsidize. The amount of money saved by cutting these people is not that much money. It’s a principle thing that the government has no business subsidizing one particular point of view over another, but they are with NPR and the CPB.