As if cutting 17 million Americans off their health care, backtracking on U.S. energy progress, and exploding our national debt weren’t enough for Republicans, they’ve now found a new target: our local radio stations.
This week, Senate Republicans are bringing up a bill, led by the Trump administration, to rescind billions in foreign aid and completely shut off public broadcasting funds. They’re doing this to codify their illegal, drastic ‘DOGE’ sledgehammer cuts from the beginning of the year.
Let me state the obvious: I’m a NO on this bill.
It’s mind boggling to go after our local radio stations – as if that’s going to help lower costs for Americans!
Our local radio stations are vital for millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Coloradans living in rural areas. It’s how folks connect and follow local and national news. Farmers and ranchers use it to track the price of commodities, so they know how much livestock or corn is going for.
Many rural communities are also dependent on public broadcasting for emergency alerts. Local radio stations are an essential part of the Wireless Emergency Alerts system that is used during public emergencies like natural disasters, transportation accidents, national security threats or public safety matters. As wildfires rage in the West, the last thing we should be doing is taking our rural stations off the air so they’re unable to provide updates to the communities who need them most.
Listen, I’m all for making government more efficient. When I was Mayor of Denver, we went in and actually made the city government smaller. When I was Governor of Colorado, we balanced the state budget – and took Colorado from 40th in job creation to the best economy in the nation.
Cutting public broadcasting is NOT how you make our government smaller and smarter. Forcing local radio stations to close and punishing our rural communities by removing their access to weather and emergency alerts is the opposite of government efficiency.
On top of all the public broadcasting cuts, they’re going after U.S. foreign leadership too. They want to claw back billions in humanitarian aid for developing countries, which will only result in China and other adversaries swooping in to fill the vacuum.
The thing to remember about all of this is that this money was already appropriated in a bipartisan vote. Congress, in a bipartisan fashion, has already agreed that this money should be spent this way. Yet the administration is attempting to bully Republican members to vote against the funding they negotiated and passed!
So what’s next? We’ll be fighting it in the Senate any way we can. We’ll be proposing amendments and slowing down the process. When the legislation comes to the floor for a final vote, I will be voting NO.
We’re also sounding the alarm to make sure every American knows what’s on the chopping block and the potential drastic consequences. Call your Republican representative and let them know your thoughts.
We’re fighting for our rural communities, our standing in the world, and everything in between.