A Big Win for NPR

It looks like the showdown in the Congress over National Public Radio is going to end in a big win for National Public Radio. That at least is what one can take from the reports out of Washington in respect of the legislation that is being fast-tracked in the House by Congressman Eric Cantor. The legislation, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, “doesn’t cut any money from the federal budget. Rather, it prohibits NPR and its local affiliates from using federal dollars to produce programming or purchase content from other member stations. Affiliate stations could only use taxpayer money for administrative costs, under the bill.” Given that money is fungible, it strikes us as unlikely the measure will change things. “They’ll just have to keep strict accounting,” the Journal quotes a spokeswoman for the bill’s author, Representative Doug Lamborn, as saying.