Agreed...

First off, I'm sorry I misread the 2012 post. Jambo so rarely comments on politics anymore, I simply assumed the observations were Ryan's.

I'm a fan of Public Broadcasting, but I agree that the "public" needs to pick up the slack right now... completely in fact. If viewer support isn't enough, then they need to sell more to corporate sponsors and gain some revenue that way. No more Federal funding, even if it is only a portion of the cost to broadcast.

Now that this has been said by me, I'll take it further and say that all Federal dollars being pumped into such "dead horses" as Amtrack need to be cut out, too. In fact...

Amtrak is a classic oportunity for the Fed to find a way to "privatize" a Federal corporation. In 2008, nearly 30 million people used the company's trains to travel, setting another record in rail travel in the US... and the system came in another $59 million OVER budget in the same fiscal period. It employs 19,000 people and serves 30 million... but can't turn a profit. The reasons for this are obvious... it is competing with commercial operations that are getting subsidized by the same bankroll that is paying for Amtrak!

With train travel becoming more and more "commercially" viable in the eyes of the American consumer, finding a way to allow private companies or existing railways to take over the lines that are most utilized seems the best way to save the taxpayers money AND bring much needed improvements to the services (the Fed never fixes itself fast enough for American consumers, we all know that). The cost of this corporation to the taxpayer is $2.6 billion per year until 2013, when the Congress will get the obligatory request for more money... which has historically been an increase of no less than 12% per anum. The major corridors of this company move millions of people per year... especially the Pacific Coast corridors and the North East corridors... and these individual lines DO make money, but the less-frequented ones cannot compete with subsidized competition.

These are both (NPR and Amtrak) great examples of areas where the Federal Government just doesn't need to be running things. If this isn't something private industry can do better and cheaper (which I'm sure it is), then the States that benefit from these corporations can pick up the bill. Its not a question of whether or not it is a necessary expense or effort... but instead it is a question of why the Fed is doing it at all?