PBS and NPR write a lot of grants, Tom. As you illustrated with the pie graph you posted, those grants that they write for Federal moneys consititute a minority of their budgets.

Grants are moneys for specific projects, with specific goals that must be listed and justified in advance, and must be scrupulously accounted for during the grant period. If the grantee fails to provide documentation, the money must either be returned or the grantee may face criminal charges. Oh, and forget receiving another grant.

Grant-writing is a competitive process. Anyone who meets the criteria may apply. As long as a government agency offers grant money for which public broadcasting is eligible, they have as much right to apply for it as anyone else. They may become complacent and think of it as "theirs" (and I don't know whether they do or not), but it isn't. Grants don't roll over like bank accounts and stock options, in which the client takes a positive action to stop the rollover. An agency or individual must reapply and rejustify the grant application at the end of the period, or the money goes to someone else.

If you believe public broadcasting should not receive Federal grant money, since it's probably illegal to discriminate against one agency that otherwise qualifies for political reasons, the logical thing to do would be to eliminate Federal grants. Be prepared for a lot of non-profits to be very very angry at you, and to lose services that they provide because of Federal grants.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is another animal, more like direct funding, but the structure is very like the "Objectives" portion of the grant-writing process, with moneys intended for individual projects, not just a slush fund. If that money went away, chances are the network would go on but the unfunded programs like "Ready to Learn" and "Mathline" would go away.

We could all then have more time to spend constructively learning how to have a civilized conversation involving careful listening and use of negotiation and moderate vocal volumes exemplified on "The O'Reilly Factor", known here as "Road Rage TV".

Regards--
Mary Anne