This American Life

This week I was surprised to read Senator Jim DeMint's op-ed about defunding NPR. I like some of the podcasts and shows from NPR and PRI but their news I can barely stomach. Anyhow, DeMint sums up his argument against continued funding:

Public broadcasting can pay its presidents half-million and million dollar salaries. Its children's programs are making hundreds of millions in sales. Liberal financiers are willing to write million-dollar checks to help these organizations. There's no reason taxpayers need to subsidize them anymore.

Fortunately or unfortunately taxpayers subsidize many other fairly successful industries, which probably includes tobacco grown in DeMint's South Carolina. Moreover, his argument implies that the wealthy neither need nor deserve assistance--this is an argument DeMint probably does not want to extend to other areas of policy, such as taxes.

DeMint's Op-ed: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703559604576176663789314074.html