House fails to eliminate NPR funding

The House on Thursday voted to move forward on legislation without voting on a proposal put forth by Republicans to defund NPR.

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the next majority leader, said the vote demonstrates that Democrats "are still not ready to listen" following their sweeping midterm election losses.

"News organizations are free to do, say and operate on their own terms, but that doesn’t mean that taxpayers should be forced to fund them. Today’s vote was just the latest common sense YouCut to cut spending and save taxpayer dollars, and again Democrats showed that they just don’t get it."

The House voted 239-171 to move forward on a teleworking bill without taking up the stripping of NPR's funding. Republicans put the item on the floor through their YouCut program, an initiative that allows the public to vote online on spending cuts they want to see enacted by Congress.

Republicans had indicated that they sought to take action against NPR after it dismissed news analyst Juan Williams for making controversial remarks about Muslims.

Three Democrats, Reps. John Adler (N.J.), Gene Taylor (Miss.) and Gabrielle Giffords (Ariz.), voted with Republicans. Adler and Taylor lost their elections two weeks ago.

Cantor indicated that such a vote could have succeeded next year with Republicans in the majority.

"If the Democrat majority wants to continue to ignore the will of the people that’s their prerogative, but the new Republican majority will not follow suit next year," he said.

"Today, good judgment prevailed as Congress rejected a move to assert government control over the content of news," NPR said in an official statement.

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