It's perfectly defensible to have a principled opposition to federal funding for journalism. But this is absurd:

House Republicans announced today that they will force a floor vote to eliminate taxpayer-funded support for NPR in response to the firing of Juan Williams. A proposal to defund NPR was the winner in the GOP’s weekly “YouCut” contest, in which the public votes online for various spending cuts GOP leaders have pledged to force votes on the winning items (so far nearly every such vote has failed to pass the Democratic-controlled House).

They're making a decision about whether to end federal subsidies to a decades old news organization because of Juan Williams? More to the point, the GOP rank-and-file could force a vote on a federal spending cut, and they picked NPR? I have a sinking feeling that this is what the GOP intends to do for two years: ride populist base fads into trivial nicks in spending, while never facing up to fiscal reality.

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