Bill would prohibit federal funds from going to NPR

Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana is pushing a measure that would prohibit federal funds from flowing to NPR.

“After the date of the enactment of this Act, no Federal funds may, directly or indirectly, be made available to or used to support” National Public Radio, “including through the payment of dues to or the purchase of programming from such organization by a public broadcast station using Federal funds received by such station,” the proposal, dubbed the “Defund NPR Act,” states. The same would apply to “any successor organization” to NPR.

Katherine Maher, who includes “She/her” prounouns on her X profile, recently became NPR’s president and CEO.

“NPR’s new CEO is a radical, left-wing activist who doesn’t believe in free speech or objective journalism. Hoosiers shouldn’t be writing her paychecks,” Banks said, according to a press release. “Katherine Maher isn’t qualified to teach an introductory journalism class, much less capable of responsibly spending millions of American tax dollars. NPR was a liberal looney bin under the last CEO John Lansing, and it’s about to get even nuttier. It’s time to pull the plug on this national embarrassment. Congress must stop spending other people’s hard-earned money on low grade propaganda.”

Maher’s archive of tweets includes comments such as an October 2016 post that reads, “I do wish Hillary wouldn’t use the language of ‘boy and girl’ – it’s erasing language for non-binary people.”

“I am a super big public transit nerd. I hate private cars in cities. I love bikes. And yes, I love buses. Transit justice,” she wrote in 2020, “and climate love,” she continued, adding, “in one humble hunk of rolling metal.”