According to press reports, Sen. Jim DeMint and Rep. Doug Lamborn are circulating letters in the Senate and House to rally support for cutting all federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and its nearly 1,300 local stations. The letters argue that the $445 million CPB budget is an “enormous” cost to taxpayers.

The letters come just a month before the CPB is supposed to deliver a report to Congress outlining how it could operate without federal funding. This timing is particularly troubling in light of a recent federal appeals court decision that opened the door to political ads on NPR and PBS stations.

Public broadcasting was founded as a refuge from the advertiser-driven model, which does not fully serve the needs of our communities or our democracy. People turn to NPR and PBS for quality news, in-depth political reporting and balanced public debate. They are where people go to escape the over-heated shouting of campaign pundits and the countless election-year attack ads. DeMint and Lamborn’s move appears to be a dangerous effort to force public broadcasters into taking political ad money by cutting off federal funding.

All across America, public broadcasting is a critical source of noncommercial local news and educational programming. Right now, local stations are covering essential stories, hosting vibrant, diverse debates about local issues, and partnering with community organizations to address local concerns like high school drop-out rates.

Funding for the CPB, which amounts to roughly one one-hundredth of one percent of the overall U.S. budget, is money well spent. Members of Congress who consider this an “enormous” expense need to spend more time with "the Count" on Sesame Street.

This boils down to basic math:

• The Real Cost: For every dollar Americans pay in taxes in 2012, only 0.015 cents will go to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. [source]
• Jobs: CPB funding is a catalyst for economic development. It helps support more than 21,000 American jobs that contribute more than $1 billion to the national economy. [source]
• Return on Investment: For every federal dollar invested in public broadcasting, local stations raise $6 on theirown, creating important economic activity. [source]

Members of Congress aren’t the only ones who are confused about funding for public broadcasting. In a 2011 CNN poll, Americans wildly overestimated the amount of federal funding that goes to public broadcasting, with a huge proportion estimating that CPB funding comprises a full 5 percent of the entire U.S. budget. If that were the case, the CPB would have a budget of roughly $178 billion a year.

And yet even when Americans guesstimate the CPB budget at 400 times its actual funding level, the majority still supports federal funding for public broadcasting. Studies show that this is true of both Republicans and Democrats. Indeed, for nine years running the public has ranked PBS as the best expenditure of taxpayer dollars after only one other agency — the Department of Defense.

Sen. DeMint and Rep. Lamborn have either lost their calculators or are trying to score political points. Either way, they’re not representing their constituents or serving their country well by playing political games with public broadcasting. Members of Congress should take a little time to recall how last year’s defunding threats met with an extraordinary public backlash.

Original photo by Flickr user Images of Money.

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