aow
I agree that Schumer’s political approach and public rationale is awful, but not voting for the budget would’ve given the Trump admin free reign to do worse on top of blaming the Democrats for it and convincing their supporters. A government shutdown would’ve given the executive branch more power to manipulate funding, including to things they can’t touch without legal challenges otherwise. I’d rather people be able to go after them in the courts, even if they’re doing awful stuff that takes longer to reverse.
This is why those senators broke with the party, because a no vote would’ve been performative and made the situation worse. The yes votes are mostly in states where deprogrammable independents are a meaningful part of the electorate for 2026.
You know what, you’re right. Numbers have shifted since I last checked this, there’s more funding from members than before 2020. The (now 30%) station contribution has less federal dollars in it checking the larger station revenue reports. It’s probably around 15% without spreadsheeting it, I didn’t check PBS.
The wild thing is that we do have access to it here, there are small farms growing quality produce and heirloom varieties not available in Europe. But that’s not what gets sold in supermarkets in population centers. The problem is in the middlemen and marketing, all unregulated for profit from crap.