Joe Barton: “I rise in as strong as possible opposition to the Hinchey amendment. We have public television today, and I am very…”

“I rise in as strong as possible opposition to the Hinchey amendment. We have public television today, and I am very proud that we do. Public television used to say that they had a reason to exist, because if they did not exist, who would provide the public aspect of some of our television programming? That was an effective argument 30 years ago, and to some extent it is still effective today. But whereas yesterday the PBS station in the local market was maybe the third or fourth station, today it may be one of dozens of stations, and if you count cable, it may be one of hundreds. So the argument for continuing to spend taxpayer money for public television is not quite as strong as it used to be. Having said that, I think there is a role for public television in the marketplace. We are now led to believe, though, that for some reason, the current head of public television is trying to move public television, you know, to the right. I disagree with that. In last year's Presidential debates, I am told that many, many viewers who watched not the debates but the campaigns, seemed to think that NPR was simply for the Bush-haters. In fact, I had a constituent come up to me and say, well, we have now heard from the Bush-haters after listening to an NPR news commentary. Rightly or wrongly, a lot of people where I come from think that NPR represents the left. I know that is exactly the opposite of what my friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) thinks.…”