Hannity & NPR: Cupp asks why not 'taxpayer money funding Fox News' Video

"Why don't we have taxpayer money funding Fox News or Town Hall or News Max?" demands S.E. Cupp, discussing public funding for National Public Radio.

The debate for continued taxpayer funding for NPR has heated up since Vivian Schiller fired Fox contributor, Juan Williams, over controversial comments made on Fox News recently. Many feel that Schiller's actions revealed NPR bias that only left-wing opinions are aired on the network  raising questions about why taxpayer dollars are paying to fund a source of  what amounts to liberal propaganda.

 "It doesn't make any sense. Look, NPR was publicly funded for the majority of the 70's and 80's; and the intent was always to wean it off government funding. 1983 rolls around and they're $7 million in debt - to us. Ok, and so they get a bail-out, which is what the government does. The point was to get them completely off, so they went to the model of getting ... private contributions,  George Soros type contributions, why they are still being funded at all right now is a mystery. "

Although a vote to defund the NPR network, called for by Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Representative Doug Lamborn (R-CO) failed. Now that the GOP has control of the House, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) is vowing to introduce a bill that would put an end to the NPR tax payer subsidy. It remains to be seen if the GOP majority will put enough force behind DeMint's bill to effectively pull the plug on NPR.

Hannity provides a hard-to-argue-with  list of reasons to support Cupp's assertion that funding NPR is just plain dumb:

• We're broke, the country is heading for bankruptcy.
• NPR is a network that allows someone to wish  Jessie Helms and his grandchildren to get AIDS but would fire Juan Williams for a remark that opened debate about American's fear of Muslim and terrorist connections
• It makes no sense that any taxpayer dollars should go for radio when George Soros is donating $1.8 million and NPR claims they raise most of their money on air, although the honesty of that claim has been challenged.
• At a time when families are struggling to pay their mortgage, they can't send their kids to college, they can't make their car payments, real unemployment is 17%,  taxpayer dollars should be used to pay down the debt or help poor people instead. It's $440 million of real money that could be more wisely spent.
• Today, with the internet, with cable news, with more radio stations ever imagined, liberal news should be forced to compete in the free marketplace . If NPR is popular, they will succeed without taxpayer funding or subsidies.
• Liberal propaganda is not the "common good" and should not be funded.  The reason why conservative talk radio is successful is because people want to hear it. NPR should stand the same acid test of competing for consumer market place share based on their programming and ideas.

Following, the objections of Sally Kohn, Movement Vision, who exploits, in video, her two-year-old daughter to push for same-sex marriage under the guise of explaining Bush tax cuts, are transcribed from the Hannity video - provided  on the sidebar:   

Let's get this clear. This isn't about the Juan Williams' firing. I think the Juan Williams firing was a mistake; it was stupid - but it wasn't censorship. But the Republicans in the government saying to NPR and saying to public broadcasting that we're going to pull your funding because we don't like one thing you did here or there - that is censorship.

First of all, this is a trifle in terms of amounts of money. And really, this is the Republicans trying to demagogue and not have to talk about the serious issues ... The mystery is why we are even talking about this. Every time the conversation is brought up and they attempt to defund has been raised, it's failed, because the majority of Americans, 67% of Americans get their news from NPR or PBS, and it is according to polls, the most trusted source in news.

Cupp pointed out that Kohn's data was from 2005; however, at that point, with raised eyebrows, Hannity corrects Kohn, reminding her that, " According to polls, Fox News is the most trusted source."