CPR’s ad was dishonest. And dishonest advertising usually is a sign of a bad product.
This article first appeared in the May 19, 2025 Colorado Springs Gazette and Denver Gazette.
Because I love classical music and Colorado Public Radio (CPR) offers classical music
programming, I was listening when the station aired an ominous announcement: Unless
we sign a petition to Congress to continue federal funding for CPR, the classical music
will stop! It will be gone!
It was a bit of advertising from a station that supposedly broadcasts no advertising. More
importantly, its message was deeply dishonest.
For years, the public broadcasting establishment has been claiming that federal dollars
comprise only a small portion of their budgets. But if they were telling the truth, then
why would the end of a minor revenue stream cause the classical music to stop?
Surely those who financed and produced the ad knew that there are many other ways to
listen to classical music. My family enjoys an “on demand” subscription to the
Metropolitan Opera.
If you subscribe to Sirius XM, you can choose among two classical music stations.
YouTube offers almost unlimited free classical content. You also can download classical
music for little or nothing. Not to mention compact disks, vinyl and other media.
In sum, you can listen to classical music every waking hour if you are so inclined, and in
your sleep as well.
So CPR’s ad was dishonest. And dishonest advertising usually is a sign of a bad product.
In this case, the product was continued federal funding for CPR and other broadcast
media. And it’s a very bad product:
• As history shows, government intervention corrupts the arts. It turns artists into
propagandists for the state. Many have long complained that public broadcasting’s
“news” coverage is biased toward the left. But no wonder: When your funding comes
from government, you have a reason to support the side of the political spectrum that
promotes more government.
• When government amplifies its voice in the mass media, it distorts the fair and free
debate protected by the First Amendment. National Public Radio recently claimed that
President Donald Trump’s effort to stop funding is an “affront to the First Amendment.”
That’s precisely backwards: Getting government out of the mass media is essential to
protecting the First Amendment.
• The federal government has an enormous annual budget deficit, which is feeding a debt
monster larger than the entire American economy.
• Expenditures on public broadcasting subsidize relatively wealthy CPR listeners at the
expense of poorer taxpayers.
Two additional points are worth elaboration. (1) CPR funding is part of the federal
government’s fiscal trap. (2) The damage from federal funding is social as well as
financial.
Fiscal trap
The Constitution created a federal government with an extensive, but still limited, list of
powers. Those powers allowed the feds to promote the arts in limited ways. For example,
Congress may enact copyright laws and subsidize the arts, including broadcasting, in
federal territories and in Washington, D.C.
Otherwise, however, the Constitution left art to individuals, private associations, and
state and local governments.
However, during the Great Depression the Supreme Court – then under severe political
pressure – stopped enforcing the Constitution’s limits on federal spending. In United
States v. Butler (1936) and Helvering v. Davis (1937), it ruled that Congress’ spending
power was almost unrestricted. My series of essays entitled “How the Supreme Court Rewrote
the Constitution,” described the financial results:
“Before those decisions, Congress usually balanced its budget or ran a surplus. In the 85
years since, Congress has rarely balanced its budget, and the size of the deficits continues
to accelerate.
“Furthermore, as Justice Butler predicted [in a dissent] … these decisions enabled
Congress to bribe states with their citizens’ own money. This undermined state
independence and weakened a check in the constitutional system.
“Removing limits on the federal spending power also created a mob of special interests
that pursue federal dollars irrespective of the public interest. Because those special
interests fund congressional reelection campaigns, cooperative members of Congress can
remain in office for decades.”
Unlimited federal authority to tax and spend has become a fiscal trap.
As the dishonest CPR advertisement illustrates, federal grant programs create special
interests that lobby for more money. Those special interests enjoy great lobbying
advantages over ordinary citizens.
Hence, our government’s seemingly irreversible fiscal spiral into bankruptcy.
Undermining tradition
My “Re-wrote” series mentioned another result of removing constitutional limits on
federal spending:
“Since the 1960s, moreover, the federal government has used its unfettered spending
authority to create dependency, fund favored political causes, promote fringe social
theories, and undermine traditional culture.”
Again, CPR is an example: The station has been an outspoken supporter of Gay Pride
Week. This is a political cause that has almost nothing to do with CPR’s classical
programming mission. Moreover, Gay Pride Week is offensive to many who support CPR,
either voluntarily or involuntarily. (For one thing, observant Catholics rank “pride” as
one of the Seven Deadly Sins.)
But the political zealots at CPR don’t care: They are going to use your money to cram
Gay Pride Week down your throat whether you like it or not.
Many recipients of federal grants seem to have an irresistible urge to attack the values
held by those who pay their salaries.
I saw this phenomenon in operation when I served on a state university faculty: Money
raised at the expense of conservative taxpayers was deployed to promote causes those
taxpayers abhorred. Further illustrations of this phenomenon came in recent disclosures
of how the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was spending taxpayer
money.
Takeaways
One lesson from this experience – and from the experience of other debt-laden Western
democracies – is that the sooner we correct fiscal dysfunctions the better. Drastic action
is far better than no action. In fact, experience tells us that only drastic action has a
chance of working.
I have been pleasantly surprised to learn that the Trump administration understands
this.
Another lesson is for social conservatives: In my experience, they often overlook the
damage done by government spending programs. In many cases, they prefer prescriptive
remedies (“You can’t spend money on this”) over the more complete solution of
defunding agencies. But politicians and bureaucrats can find ways to evade, weaken, or
reverse prescriptive remedies. Only defunding does the job and in a relatively permanent
manner.
Defunding works because, as the late H.L. Richardson – longtime California senator,
national columnist, and political humorist – used to say: “I never met a bureaucrat who
worked for nothing.”
CPR has many dedicated donors. No doubt there are other potential donors who would
give if the station cured its bias and weaned itself from government funds.
* * *
Editor’s Note, January 22, 2026: Congress subsequently eliminated federal funding, and neither NPR, CPR, or the classical music has stopped. NPR and CPR have not, however, cured their bias.
