Logical Extension of Cutting NPRs Funding Due to Juan William's Firing

The way a significant number of the argument for defunding NPR after the firing Juan William's go something like this: "NPR receives federal funds and therefore violated Juan William's First Amendment Rights by firing him for his comments." Essentially saying that because NPR receives some federal funding, they are a quasi government entity and therefore must follow government personel rules. One website even went on to analyis NPR funding down to what it is indirectly receiving through tax exempt contributions.

It is harder to fire people in the government because there is the fear of politically motivated terminations that would have a chilling effect on government employees. Most private employment is at will and terminations can be for almost any reason. My question is: What if we started treating any entity that receives federal funding as a quasi governmental organization? General Motors? Citibank? Chase? What about Government contractors? Lockheed? Boeing? Worse yet, if you follow WND's analysis of indirect funding through tax benefits, this probably extends to any number of companies including all of Big Oil and Big Ag. Should all of these company be restricted in their ability to fire people because they receive federal funding either directly or indirectly?

This seems to me the logical extension of treating NPR like a quasi governmental organization because it receives federal funding and tax exemptions. To scream for the defunding of NPR because it fired someone over comments made to another media outlet could lead to the exact opposite of what Republicans profess to want. It would severily restrict private industry's ability to conduct its business.

If you want to defund NPR because you think the government should be in the media business that is understandable, but do not use NPR's business decision to fire Juan Williams as an excuse. It could lead down a road that no reasonable person would want.

Federal Taxes paid v. Benefits received

So I am sitting here watching McCain talk about how Obama has requested over $900 Million in federal funds for Illinois. (He did not mention whether this was in 2007, 2008, or over his tenure as a Senator). I will take that figure as about accurate because really I am just concerned with how much states pay and how much they receive in federal money. To this end I visited The Tax Foundation website to check out the 2005 numbers. I can't imagine any of the candidates has had much time to get pork for themselves in 2008. Here are the numbers for the 4 state who have candidates in this presidential election:

Taxes Paid Funds received (in Millions)
Alaska $4,830 $9,230
Arizona $35,988 $44,639
Delaware $6,662 $5,495
Illinois $99,776 $80,778

Alaska received $1.84; Arizona recieved $1.19, Delaware received $.77, and Illinois received $.75 for every dollar sent to Washington. Now that is only 2005, the Foundation does not have more recent numbers yet and I don't have time right now to track down more recent numbers. However, the ratios probably have not changed that much. I will find them when I can or if you have a link, please post. If the ratios are still the same, it is really hard for the candidates from receiver states to call out the candidates from donor states on pork.

It might be interesting to take a look at the Ranks in states for money received per dollar paid in federal taxes. You might notice how Red the top is and how blue the bottom is.