On the heels of calls by Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee to ban federal funding for NPR in the wake of Juan Williams' dismissal, I'd like to propose a ban on federal funding for Fox News.

Yes, I know that my proposal is absurd on its face. Fox News doesn't receive any direct funding from the federal government. But neither does NPR. Yes, you read that right: NPR gets absolutely no direct federal funding. Zilch, nada, zippo.

Despite that fact, Palin and Huckabee can try to hang their hat on this indirect source of federal funding: NPR receives dues payments from member stations. Collectively, those member stations have revenue of about one billion dollars, including roughly ninety million dollars from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which in turn receives federal funding. In all, these indirect sources account for about two percent of NPR's budget. And if they really want to stretch, in any given year NPR may receive competitive grants from entities which receive federal funding, but those grants are available to anyone who competes for them that account for perhaps four percent of NPR's budget.

But the bottom-line is that NPR receives no direct federal funding. In other words, when Huckabee and Palin call for eliminating direct federal funding of NPR, they are howling at the moon. It makes as much sense as my proposal to ban federal funding for Fox News. Which, for the record, was a proposal made in jest. I really don't care if federal funding for Fox is banned. Because there isn't any.