UPDATE (4:55 pm EST): Thanks for the quick recommend guys. We need to keep up these calls all through the day tomorrow. If you want to pass this on to your friends and family, simply use this action page:
http://www.commoncause.org/KeepBigBirdFlyingJust posted this on
CommonbLog. Last week, House appropriators cut $100 million from next year's budget for public broadcasting. House members also voted to cut all federal funds to public broadcasting by 2008. As the Washington Post noted, the cuts were a "malicious wounding, if not outright attempted murder, of public broadcasting in America."
We asked you to oppose these drastic cuts, and
your calls and emails made a difference. The House Appropriations Committee decided not to cut off all funds by 2008, but the Committee did not rescind its $100 million cut for 2006.
But time is running out and tomorrow, the House will vote on its final budget proposal for public broadcasting.
That's why we need your help again, as we need to flood the Congress with phone calls and emails. More after the jump.
A bipartisan group of legislators has proposed an amendment to repair this $100 million hole in the budget.
Tomorrow, Representatives David Obey (D-WI), James Leach (R-IA) and Nita Lowey (D-NY) will be putting forward an amendment to restore that $100 million to public broadcasting's budget for next year. The amendment will be offered as part of the Labor-Health and Human Services -Education Appropriations bill.
Please call your Representative today or first thing tomorrow morning, and ask them to support the Obey-Lowey-Leach amendment on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). You can find your Member of Congress by
going here.
If this amendment does not pass, more than 1,000 local public television stations will suffer budget cuts most seeing a drop of more than 40 percent in their federal funding. Small stations serving rural communities and minority audiences would be particularly hard hit by these cuts because they operate on very tight budgets and in many cases are one of the only stations serving the community. So
please call your Congressional representative today.
This amendment will ensure that the $100 million that is restored won't hurt other vitally needed programs, but will be offset by economies in agency administrative expenses. So call your Member today, ask him or her to vote for the Obey-Lowey-Leach amendment, and then
pass this message to your family and friends.
Big Bird Needs You. Don't Let Him Down.