As a committed Democrat that has supported NPR and CPB for years, I think the time to get rid of federal funding of CPB and NPR has come.
The original purpose of funding these good causes was originally that there was not enough good local programming out in the countryside when the media was still relatively young to promote "good" programming that was not commercially viable.
I think that purpose has expired and we need to move on and focus on funding CPB and NPR with private funds and where not commercially viable have them exit from markets. The major cities where there is substantial support will survive and I suspect in other places where there is not a commercially viable audiance they will have to close down and listen to commercially available radio and television and/or pay for feeds from cable/satellite providers.
What I worry about is how the content of CPB and NPR is being politicized and it will end up being a "mouthpiece for whoever is in power" in Washington.
You can all disagree with me if you want but I think this is a case of "you may win the battle but lose the war" if we keep federal funding for CPB/NPR. The freedom of ideas is more important than federal funding.
So I say that Democrats should support Republican efforts to stop federal funding for CPB/NPR (maybe not so drastically as originally proposed like 20% per year over 5 years so the viable stations have time to make other funding plans).
In the end it is a lot of effort for funding and freedom of programming for $100 Million of federal government funding that can be replaced by private funds from foundations and individuals that want to support this type of programming. This effort can be used in other ways.