This is a letter I sent to U.S. Rep. Nick Langworthy.

I cannot believe Congress is considering a bill to defund NPR/PBS (No Partisan Radio Partisan Services Act)

Is Congress really going to waste time trying to limit these broadly accessible media outlets that provide preschool children’s programs to children without access to preschools, improve public safety by networking first responders and issuing weather alerts to remote communities (your WARN Act would depend on this service) and for communities without access to cultural events? PBS offers a plethora of cultural programming. And these are just a few of the valuable public services NPR/PBS provide.

These are justifications the bill’s supporters give:

– They say “NPR/PBS programming is politically biased.”

A Harvard Library review rates NPR as one of the least politically biased news outlets. It’s reporting is described as” a mix of reporting and analysis or simple fact reporting” Whereas the news outlets rated as more biased such as Fox News and MSNBC are described as reporting “with opinion or wide variation in reliability”

– They say “Depriving these media outlets of federal funding will reduce the $36 trillion deficit.”

This deficit is caused in part by Trump’s 2017 corporate tax cuts which decreased tax revenue, a decrease that corporate investment did not compensate for. (and now you want to extend those cuts?!) NPR/PBS receive one-10th of 1 percent of the federal budget. This will hardly put a dent in the federal deficit.

If this is about money, let’s consider this. In 2024 NPR/PBS was given about $18 billion. Meanwhile Elon Musk received $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits.

Defunding NPR/PBS is obviously an attempt to silence voices that sometimes say things MAGAtonians don’t like. Congressman Langworthy, if you intend to vote for this defund NPR/PBS bill, maybe you should read the First Amendment.

Tina Scherman is a Conewango Valley resident.