Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly is joining Kentucky Rep. Morgan McGarvey in calling the GOP plan to cancel $9 billion in spending on public broadcasting “devastating” to rural communities. (Photo by Gloria Rebecca Gomez/Arizona Mirror)
Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly joined Kentucky Rep. Morgan McGarvey in calling the Republican plan to cancel $9 billion in spending on public broadcasting and foreign aid “devastating” to rural communities in their states.
“Last night here in the Senate, our Republican colleagues decided to forge ahead with these cuts and this is at a time when we should be investing in the future of our economy,” Arizona’s Kelly said in a press call Wednesday with reporters.
Lawmakers have been voting on proposed rescissions and that voting could extend into the nighttime as House Democrats have made procedural moves to try to prevent Republicans from essentially defund NPR and PBS.
“I grew up watching Sesame Street. I’m 61,” Kelly said. “‘Sesame Street’ has been around for more than half a century and kids today are going to be cut off from having that experience.”
Kelly emphasized that PBS childhood educational programming provides a valuable service to children and has been shown to help improve reading.
“These are lessons that every child should grow up learning no matter where they live or how much money their parents make,” Kelly said of the lessons taught by programs such as “Sesame Street” and “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.”
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But both Kelly and McGarvey emphasized something else at risk from the cuts, public safety.
The two men said that cutting funding to public broadcasting will have a major impact on rural broadcast stations which often give out emergency alerts for wildfires, floods and other weather-related emergencies for rural areas of their states.
“Donald Trump is once again stabbing rural America in the back,” McGarvey said, adding that Kentucky faces the largest number of possible hospital closures from cuts to Medicaid. “The cuts to public broadcast put lives in danger in Kentucky.”
Both states have been hit with major natural disasters in recent months.
Arizona is in the midst of a wildfire season which has been getting continually more intense due to the impacts of climate change and in May, Kentucky experienced a tornado so powerful that the devastation could be seen from space.
Kelly said that Arizona’s rural areas, such as the Navajo Nation, often rely on radio to get their news and emergency information. Removing federal funds could put that at risk.
South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds announced Tuesday that he had reached an agreement with the White House to secure $9.4 million, moved from an account at the Interior Department, to at least two dozen Native radio stations in multiple states.
Those include Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
Cutting funding to PBS and NPR has been a priority of the Trump administration and has even threatened to not endorse Republicans who refuse to do so on social media.
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