House GOP plans NPR defunding vote

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- House Republicans said Wednesday they plan to force a vote on defunding the publicly subsidized NPR in light of analyst Juan Williams' firing in October.

"When NPR executives made the decision to unfairly terminate Juan Williams and to then disparage him afterwards, the bias of their organization was exposed," House GOP Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia and Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado said in a statement.

"Make no mistake, it is not the role of government to tell news organizations how to operate. What is avoidable, however, is providing taxpayer funds to news organizations that promote a partisan point of view. Eliminating taxpayer funding for NPR is precisely the kind of commonsense cut that we have to begin making if we want to fundamentally alter the way business is conducted in Washington."

NPR terminated Williams' contract Oct. 20 after he told Fox News host Bill O'Reilly he gets nervous when he sees people in Muslim garb boarding a plane with him.

Cantor said defunding NPR was this week's winner of the GOP's "YouCut" contest, in which members of the public vote on programs they would like to see cut.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has said he will present legislation in the Senate to defund NPR.

NPR does not receive direct funding from the U.S. government, but member stations rely on direct government funds and Corporation for Public Broadcasting grants for an estimated 16 percent of their revenue. NPR gets an estimated 1.5 percent of its revenues from CPB grants.