Congress is playing politics with Public Bradcasting. If upsets you, MoveOn.org makes it easy to send a note to your representatives.

I'm terribly disturbed to hear that congress is considering cutting public funding to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcast System.

NPR and PBS are world-renouned for their quality and are sources of great pride for Americans. Both do invaluable work to educate and inform citizens. Though PBS and NPR are often associated with Washington, Boston, New York, and other large cities, the proposed funding cuts would most hurt small-town America. Rural public radio stations would all but disappear without Federal assistance.

Given that Federal funding to the CPB is roughly $400 million, money is clearly not the primary motivation for the proposed cuts. The Federal Highway Bill alone, currently under consideration, is spending $295 billion of taxpayer money.

The State of Alaska will receive more than $490 million per year in Federal funding from the Highway bill, including more than $400 million to construct two bridges serving less than 10,000 Alaskan residents. If the small amount of Federal funding to the CPB is cut, however, Alaska's Public Radio stations are likely to cease operation.

If Congress can see fit to include this kind of pork barrel spending in the $295 billion highway bill, it can certainly set aside $400 million to fund institutions as valuable as NPR and PBS.

Congress must save NPR, PBS and local public stations. We trust them for in-depth news and educational children's programming. It's money well spent.