John Oliver Slams Trump’s Budget Proposal Which Eliminates Public Broadcasting and NEA Funding — Watch
On Sunday nigh’s episode of “Last Week Tonight,” host John Oliver slammed Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts, which, among other programs, would eliminate funding for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting — which provides funding to NPR and PBS — and the National Endowments for the Arts.
“Look, there is nothing wrong with cuts in principle, but with budgets, as with haircuts, it’s where and how you cut that matters,” Oliver said. “It is important to note, non-defense discretionary spending is already at its lowest level relative to GDP [gross domestic product] in over 50 years, lower than any year in [Ronald] Reagan’s presidency.”
The British-born comedian added that eliminating funding to those programs “isn’t just short-sighted, it doesn’t make fiscal sense…you don’t cut those agencies as a cost-saving measure, you do it as a fuck you. It is the budgetary equivalent of inviting Mitt Romney out to dinner at Jean-Georges before not offering him a Cabinet position — and I will say, that was awesome, by the way. Trump is so consistently monstrous, sometimes out of sheer coincidence he happens to do something amazing.”
And, speaking specifically about eliminating the CPB and the NEA, Oliver added, “His pettiness extends even further when it comes to some of the tiny items his budgets eliminates funding for, like the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which last year made up less than .02 percent of federal spending, but according to [White House Budget Director Mick] Mulvaney it is unfair to expect people to even pay that much.”
Watch the clip below.
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