http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39574On June 30, 1972, two weeks after the Watergate burglars were taken into custody, Richard Nixon vetoed a congressional bill to double and treble federal funding for public broadcasting.
Nixon's stunning veto was sustained. Yet he had only "scotched the snake, not killed it," in the words of MacBeth.
Having escaped the ax, PBS and its little sister, National Public Radio, with their consistently leftist bias, grew fat on 40 years of federal money.
Nixon would express regret he had not followed the advice of those who urged him to terminate taxpayer funding and force public television and radio to compete fairly with private broadcasting.
Early in 2011, a Republican House and a more Republican Senate will have a second chance to succeed where Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush I and II failed to try -- to terminate tax funding of PBS and NPR.
Whether a Republican House will zero out funding for public broadcasting will be an early test of its character. If it gives CPB only a haircut and a pat on the head, the tea party folks should start recruiting candidates to run against GOP incumbents in 2012.
