Things that are supported by a durable majority of the population. I wish that included public broadcasting, but it doesn't.
Personally, I'm tired of hearing conservatives whine about public broadcasting. This will at least shut them up for good.
Personally, I'm tired of hearing conservatives whine about public broadcasting. This will at least shut them up for good.
Removing federal influence in setting agenda while sending federal funding directly to states without federal oversight of programs would not be a bad thing. My 2c.
My kids high school recently cancelled advanced math classes because the racial composition of students there was not what the school hoped to see. No, thank you, I want parents to have a much bigger influence on what schools teach.
To which funding are you referring?
In fact[0]:
"Unlike many government agencies, the United States Postal Service (USPS) does not receive direct taxpayer funding for operating expenses. Government appropriations are limited to specific purposes, such as the Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) Program."
And[1]:
"In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation."
[0] https://govfacts.org/federal/usps/how-usps-stays-afloat-fund...
[1] https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis...
What you're referring to is a kind of "respectability politics". Basically, if we're nice and do what conservatives say, then things get better and they ease off.
We have literal hundreds of years of proof that this is not the case, and the opposite happens.
Think about Donald Trump. When we legitimize him and continue to do so, has he gotten less extreme, or more? In 2016 versus now, is he less extreme, or more? Much, much more. But he got what he wanted, right? Yes. And then he wants more, because he feels emboldened. It's an ideology built on Greed.
If you give conservatives an inch, they take a mile. If you ease up a bit on reconstruction, then suddenly you have Jim Crow. If you you give them a teensy little bit of morality legislation, then suddenly you have mass censorship proposals and the Ten Commandments in schools.
As a gay man, I see this time and time again in my own community. I have been told we are too vulgar, too sexual, too gross, and this is why conservatives target us. That if we just acted more normal, more respectable, they would leave us alone, and the world would be happy.
But there was a time when we were respectable, when we hid in the shadows. When we got wives just for show, just to please the conservative narrative. When we only acted like ourselves in our own hidden bars, our own hidden spaces. Out of sight, out of mind. And, well, how were we treated? Was it better? No. It was much, much worse.
This will not shut them up.
No it won't. The modern GOP is fueled by grievance. It needs an "other" in order to exist. They'll have a new enemy to rail against by this time tomorrow.