A top House Republican appropriator opposes the Trump administration’s plans to claw back funding for public media — a potential problem for GOP leaders who need near-unity within their party to pass the White House’s request that Congress revoke billions of dollars it has already approved.
Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, who leads the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security, on Monday joined with Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) to urge the administration to reconsider its proposal to cut $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and NPR.
It’s a portion of the larger recissions package the administration sent to Capitol Hill last week to cut $9.4 billion previously greenlit by Congress, mainly for foreign aid.
“Public media has demonstrated a willingness to listen to the American public and adapt,” said the two lawmakers, who are co-chairs of the Bipartisan Public Broadcasting Caucus, in a statement. “While we reaffirm that public media must be objective and legitimate concerns about content should be addressed, funding decisions should be objective as well.”
Amodei and Goldman also noted that public media supports local jobs and the spread of information to rural constituents, and that cutting its funding does not significantly save money.
“Public broadcasting represents less than 0.01% of the federal budget, yet its impact reaches every congressional district,” lawmakers said. “Cutting this funding will not meaningfully reduce the deficit, but it will dismantle a trusted source of information for millions of Americans.”
President Donald Trump and many of his Republican allies have said NPR and PBS air programming biased against conservatives and shouldn’t receive government support. But Amodei joins a growing number of GOP lawmakers who want to tread carefully. Other Republicans are expressing concerns about cuts to global AIDS prevention efforts, too.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise last Friday introduced the rescissions package as a formal piece of legislation, with a floor vote expected later this week. It is unclear whether Amodei would vote against the package on the floor as it is, but leaders can only afford to lose three Republican votes and still pass the measure.
“We don’t share how he is planning to vote before a vote but he is looking at all of the information,” said Carrie Kwarcinski, a spokesperson for Amodei, in a statement.
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