Guest Post From Dr. Barry Denton on Drug Importation

Washington is Poised to Make Kentucky's Opioid Crisis Worse

Drug overdoses are skyrocketing in Kentucky. Staff at the St. Elizabeth hospital system in the northern part of the state revive six opioid overdose victims every day.[1] Twice as many Kentuckians are dying of overdoses as car accidents.[2]

Incredibly, politicians in Washington are pushing a bill that would make the crisis even worse.

The proposed law, introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders, would legalize the importation of medicines from Canada.^[3]

Proponents argue that the bill would save patients money by allowing them to buy cheaper prescription drugs from abroad. In reality, those "cheaper" medicines could come at the price of hundreds of Kentuckians' lives. Many unscrupulous pharmacies will jump at the chance to make a few bucks by sending painkillers to Americans without requiring prescriptions. The bill would also seriously strain law enforcement's ability to intercept illegal drugs.

Kentuckians' drug addictions often begin with prescription pain pills. In the last three months of 2016, Kentucky residents filled prescriptions for more than 17 million doses of oxycodone and 36 million doses of hydrocodone.^[4] In just one year, Clay County residents filled enough prescriptions to provide every resident -- including children -- with 150 doses of hydrocodone and oxycodone.^[5]

Many of these pills wind up on the black market, fueling people's addictions. And when addicts can't find or afford prescription painkillers, they often turn to heroin.

Heroin is dangerous enough on its own -- but now, drug dealers are lacing heroin with fentanyl,^[6] a deadly synthetic opioid that's 100 times more potent than morphine.^[7] Some strains of fentanyl are so potent that Narcan, a lifesaving shot used to resuscitate overdose victims, doesn't work.[8]

One-third of Kentucky overdose deaths involve fentanyl.[9]

Legalizing prescription drug importation would make it easier for dealers to obtain massive quantities of illicit pain pills, heroin, and fentanyl. 

Even though it's illegal, some Americans already import prescription drugs. Many order from online Canadian pharmacies, some of which don't even require prescriptions.^[10] Fortunately, authorities are sometimes able to intercept these shipments, which often contain spoiled, counterfeit, or illegal substances.

If the bill passes, many Americans would start ordering medicines from foreign pharmacies without realizing that those drugs lack the gold standard of approval from the Food and Drug Administration There'd be little stopping a drug dealer from buying opioids in bulk to resell to vulnerable addicts. And the sheer volume of shipments makes it unlikely that law enforcement would be able to stop this trafficking.

Legalized importation wouldn't just result in pain pills flooding into Kentucky -- it could also allow drug dealers to bring in pure fentanyl. Canadian authorities have warned that they don't inspect drugs that are imported from abroad, routed through Canada, and then reshipped to America.^[11] The FDA also has no way to inspect or vet these imports.[12]

In other words, fentanyl-producing labs in China could ship large quantities of the drug to America via Canada. It'd be difficult for health authorities and law enforcement to distinguish between packages containing legitimate prescriptions and those containing deadly opioids.

Kentucky's cops and first responders already are stretched thin dealing with overdoses. The last thing they need is for federal lawmakers to make it even easier to obtain dangerous drugs. Senators Sanders may sincerely believe importation would help lower drug costs. But the price paid in human lives would be far too steep.

Dr. Barry D. Denton

Retired Police Sergeant – Louisville Metro Police Department

---

[1] http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/27/opioid-addiction-is-fueling-an-average-of-six-overdoses-a-day-in-kentucky/

[2] http://www.kentuckyhealthfacts.org/data/location/show.aspx?state=kentucky and https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/statedeaths.html

^[3]https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/affordable-and-safe-prescription-drug-importation-act-introduced-to-help-lower-skyrocketing-cost-of-medicine

[4] http://www.chfs.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/C32BB010-C430-4261-B285-2E308E5FB6F1/0/KASPERQuarterlyTrendReportQ42016.pdf

^[5] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/02/kentucky-opioids/515775/

[6] http://odcp.ky.gov/Pages/The-Heroin-Epidemic.aspx

[7] https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/fentanyl

[8] http://www.richmondregister.com/kentucky/news/northeast-kentucky-responders-leery-of-new-drug-that-could-be/article_bcce99c3-1ca3-58a5-907e-5a60d4ff0669.html

[9] http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article83770067.html

[10] https://www.yourcanadianmeds.com/

[11] https://www.fda.gov/drugs/resourcesforyou/consumers/ucm143561.htm

[12] https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Testimony/ucm113635.htm

Imagine Taking A Cancer Drug That is Fake!

This piece on the issue of deregulating prescription drugs comes from two former attorney generals. That begs the question:  what does Kentucky's Attorney General say about this?

Hat tip to the Sun-Sentinel on an issue that all of us who take prescription meds -- or have friends or family who do -- should watch.

By the way, for anyone who thinks this is not an issue in Kentucky, recall that a few years ago there was an issue in Louisville with fake Botox.

As former state attorneys general, we are keenly aware of how stretched local
law enforcement budgets are and how law enforcement officials already
struggle to contain the flood of illegal drugs flowing into the United States
from other countries. That job could get a lot harder if we have to start
tracking prescription drugs, too.

Bills before Congress would end a longstanding ban on the import of
prescription medicines not previously cleared by the Food and Drug
Administration. The proposals were floated to curb rising drug prices, but the
potential drawbacks are daunting.

Americans have access to safe and effective prescription drugs due in large
measure to the strict safeguards the FDA has established to approve new
treatments and monitor the manufacturing and distribution of existing
medicines. Meanwhile, patients in many other countries are exposed to
substandard medicines produced and sold with less-rigorous oversight by the
local government. Those conditions have spawned an already massive — and
still growing — market for counterfeit drugs all over the world.
Those dangerous knockoffs are starting to infiltrate the U.S. market. The FDA
website lists a number of counterfeit drugs seized in the United States that
were sold as popular biopharmaceutical products. These imitations include
fake Botox, fake Cialis and a number of fake cancer drugs that either lacked
the active ingredients required to be effective or had different compounds
entirely.
Counterfeit drugs are often sold by unlicensed suppliers who are not
authorized to sell or distribute prescription drugs in the United States. The
FDA has long warned that these products are unsafe and should not be used
because the agency cannot confirm that the makers and distributors of these
drugs adhered to U.S. standards when they manufactured or distributed
them.

Other countries have been inundated with these fake drugs for years. For
example, the World Health Organization estimates as many as 20 percent of
the drugs sold in India are counterfeit. The WHO started warning doctors and
other health care professionals years ago about the dangers of these
counterfeit drugs, and the organization issues frequent reports to spotlight
massive seizures of fake pills and other medicines that were intended for sale
to patients all over the world.

“Health experts believe such operations have only scratched the surface of a
flourishing industry in counterfeit medicines that poses a growing threat to
public health around the world,” the WHO declared in an official bulletin
back in 2009. In 2014, Interpol warned, “Pharmaceutical crime poses a grave
danger to public health.”

Organized-crime syndicates have established sophisticated networks to
produce and sell these counterfeit drugs in other countries. They have already
started working through doctors and medical clinics in the United States, but
U.S. import restrictions are a big reason the FDA, U.S. Customs and Border
Protection and the Drug Enforcement Agency have been able to contain the
problem.

The bills before Congress would remove many of the license and oversight
requirements on the drugs imported into the United States by lifting those
barriers, inviting an influx of bogus pharmaceutical products from the same
crime rings that are selling these drugs in other countries around the world
that would love better access to the U.S. market.
Law enforcement would inevitably be tasked with policing the problem, at a
time when most prosecutors and law enforcement officials have their hands
full with the growing opioid crisis. One of the biggest killers is fentanyl, a
potent, synthetic opioid pain medication that is being laced into counterfeit
pills.

Just last year, the DEA issued a report sounding alarm bells about these
synthetic opioids. There were more than 700 deaths attributed to fentanyl
between late 2013 and 2014, and the numbers are climbing rapidly. The DEA
report lists a number of specific cases involving counterfeit opioids, including
the seizure last year of 500 pills in Lorain County, Ohio, that included a
synthetic “that caused at least 17 overdoses and several deaths.”

Opening the door to increased prescription drug importation will just make it
easier for smugglers to ship this dangerous opioid into the United States. For
years, we have asked police officers and prosecutors to do more with less.
There are few signs that austerity will end. Changing laws to encourage
importation of drugs would only add to that burden.

Thurbert Baker is a former attorney general of Georgia. Bill McCollum is a
former attorney general of Florida. They wrote this for InsideSources.com.

More Liberals Wage War on Women

I'm waiting for Feminists to come running to the defense of Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Sanders was recently promoted to White House Press Secretary. This mother of three has been attacked for her appearance. Ira Madison, of the Daily Beast, referred to her as a "Butch queen first time in drags at ball."  I'm not going to link to him because that would just reward bad behavior.

This is an abhorrent way to refer to a woman, any woman. But because Sanders is a conservative, she is fair game. The hypocrisy is sickening.

And how about the reference to transgender? Imagine if a Republican had said that about a liberal; Dems would call it a hate crime.

Senate Judiciary Committee Votes Yes!

The Senate Judiciary just voted in favor of John K. Bush's nomination to the U.S. Court of  Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Thanks, everyone, for all the prayers

RIP Dave Armstrong

How sad to learn of the passing of former Louisville Mayor Dave Armstrong. Dave was Louisville's last mayor prior to the merger of city and county governments

Dave also was the visionary behind the Louisville Extreme Skate Park. That brought the X Games to Louisville, including tourists and the economic benefit that follows. It gave Louisville youth a fun place to get some exercise. And it made Louisville hip; Dave did all this before any of us had even heard of Extreme sports.

Most importantly, Dave was a kind and decent man. He was smart, creative, and made his corner of the world better through public service.

Dave was a Democrat whom Republicans and Independents could like and respect. We will miss him.

Louisville Blows Past Chicago - Not In A Good Way

The Pegasus Institute -- the new conservative/libertarian think tank here -- has just released a fascinating report on the the epidemic of violent crime in Louisville.

The statistics are beyond appalling. The murder rate is much worse than most of us thought. This becomes apparent, for example, when one looks at the crime rate inside the Watterson Expressway as distinguished from the entire metro area.

Here are a few statistics from Pegasus Institute Executive Director Jordan Harris:

• In 2016, 71.18% (84 of 118) of all homicides investigated by LMPD took place in zip codes that are either wholly or partially inside the Watterson.

• Using a conservative estimate , the population inside the Watterson Expressway is just under 275,000 residents,  meaning that with 84 total murders in 2016, this area had a murder rate of 30.5 per 100,000. If considered in isolation, this would be the 8th most dangerous major city in America, edging out Chicago, Illinois, which has a murder rate of 27.7 per 100,000. (INSIDE OF THE WATTERSON EXPRESSWAY IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN CHICAGO)

• The majority of homicides in 2016 took place in five individual zip codes (listed in order of total); 40211, 40203, 40210, 40212, and 40215. These five areas accounted for just over 77% (65 of 84) of the murders inside the Watterson Expressway, 55% of murders investigated by LMPD (65 of 118), and 52.4% (65 of 124) of all murders in Jefferson County. Four of these five zip codes had an increase in homicides in 2016, helping to push the city-wide total to an all-time high.

• The jump from 56 LMPD homicide investigation in 2014 to 118 in 2016, a 110% increase, is by far the largest jump in Louisville’s history, surpassing the previous two-year high of 44.7%, and larger than any other similar sized metro areas. (THIS IS NOT JUST A NATIONAL PROBLEM. THE SPIKE HAS BEEN MUCH GREATER IN LOUISVILLE)

• The illicit drug market (i.e. opioid crisis) is not the cause of this spike. 

• A study by Mathew Phillips, a research analyst with the Rochester Youth Development Study at the State University of New York at Albany, examined a panel of delinquent youth and found that the drug dealers within a gang are actually less likely to use weapons or commit certain violent acts than their non-drug dealing fellow gang members

• Anonymous sources within LMPD confirmed that last year, of the 118 murders investigated by LMPD, 100 murders were considered gang related. 

Louisville Needs to Pull it Together

The Big Four Bridge -- a source of much pride and enjoyment for Louisville -- became a murder scene last night, Memorial Day.  Four people were shot, and one man has died.

The shootings occurred at 9:30, early enough that many people were enjoying the beautiful weather. After all, Mayor Greg Fisher told us we were supposed to get out and exercise this weekend, specifically, hike, bike and paddle at Waterfront Park.

Now those who go to the bridge to get in their steps as an effort to improve their health have to worry about getting shot.

I am starting to sympathize with those parents who hesitate to allow their children to come downtown. There is no doubt that the violence is increasing, and now it appears that is spreading geographically -- not that it was ever acceptable when its radius was smaller.

The Pegasus Institute has been studying the problem of violence here and solutions that have worked for comparable cities like Cincinnati. They will be releasing their recommendations shortly. I look forward to what they have to say, but remain concerned that the Fisher administration lacks the ability to implement the recommendations.

RIP, Jim Bunning

Former Sen. Jim Bunnings has passed away. He was a big presence on the baseball field and the U.S. Senate. He was an important part of Kentucky's transformation into a red state. He gave many Republicans their first brake in working on a political campaign or his office.

Our prayers go out to his family.

Just Heartbreaking

I've written before about Louisville's escalating murder rate under Mayor Greg Fisher's watch. The latest victim was only seven years old -- eating cake at the kitchen table Sunday evening. The bullet came through the window, apparently part of a fight in the backyard next door.

Fisher is a nice guy and fairly pro-business for a Democrat. But he is out of his league when it comes to the gang violence and heroin epidemic that threaten to wipe out all the positive changes Louisville has attained in the last 20 years.

The little boy's name:  Dequante Hobbs. He lived in the Russell neighborhood and was a second grader at Wellington Elementary, no doubt looking forward to summer vacation starting in just days.

Prayers for peace for his family, repose for his soul, and justice for his murderer.

Mueller Should Investigate This, Too

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who has been appointed as Special Counsel in the Russian investigation should also get to the bottom or why Sen. Rand Paul was surveilled by the Obama administration.

Two reporters have told Paul that they have seen classified information in which his named was unmasked. That means Paul -- a sitting U.S. Senator -- was spyed upon by the executive branch probably by the NSA.

And how is it that two reporters saw this?

The whole thing stinks.

My C-J Column on Good Economic News in KY

Reprinted with permission of the Courier-Journal:

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin and the new Republican majority in the House must be getting tired of all the winning since the Kentucky General Assembly’s transformational session in January. So much winning. It’s becoming difficult to keep track of all the good news.

For example, last week, Apple announced that it will invest $200 million in the Corning plant in Harrodsburg that makes the Gorilla Glass for iPhones. The money will be used for research and development. Although it is unclear how many new jobs will result, at the very least it secures the future for the Harrodsburg facility. It cannot be a bad thing for a major corporation to spend $200 million in one’s state.

Three weeks ago, Braidy Industries announced that it is building a $1.3 billion aluminum rolling plant in Greenup County, near the Kentucky-West Virginia border. The facility will hire 550 employees with average salary of $70,000. Another 1,000 workers will be needed to build the factory.

More: Hits and misses

In January, Amazon announced that its $1.4 billion expansion at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) airport will result in 2,700 jobs. That’s the largest single investment in Northern Kentucky ever.

Toyota – which supports 30,000 jobs in Kentucky – last month announced that it is investing an additional $1.3 billion in its Georgetown, Kentucky plant.

It’s a refreshing and dramatic change from past announcements of plants closing and Kentucky losing out to neighboring states year after year when Democrats controlled Frankfort.

ADVERTISING

The Bevin administration and the Republicans in the legislature deserve credit. This January marked the first time in nearly a century that Republicans have controlled the House. Republicans immediately passed right to work as well as other legislation to make the Commonwealth more business friendly. Tax reform is slated to follow.

Right to work laws allow employees to join a union if they so desire but prevent unions from forcing them to join. Kentucky was the last state in the South, and 27th in the country to pass right to work.

The importance of these legislative initiatives cannot be overstated. Braidy Industries CEO Craig Bouchard said that Kentucky’s passage of right to work contributed to the decision to build the Greenup County facility.

“If Kentucky was not a right-to-work state, you wouldn’t have gotten on the list because it’s so important to us,” Bouchard said.

More Bridget Bush columns

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The Braidy Industries facility, in particular, is an answer to prayer. Those jobs pay, on average, $70,000 in a county where the median income is $45,400. The new facility would have been good news anywhere, but the fact that it is locating in an area so desperate for jobs is cause for rejoicing. That part of Appalachia has twice the unemployment rate of the rest of the state.

Five hundred Kentuckians in Eastern Kentucky now will have an opportunity to work. Moreover, Bouchard envisions an employee-friendly facility with daycare, a fitness center, and healthy dining services. And Braidy is coordinating with local community colleges to arrange the training and internships that will transition to a career.

The Braidy Industries announcement makes me think of J.D. Vance’s powerful book "Hillbilly Elegy: a Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis." Vance traces his family’s migration from Breathitt County, Kentucky to Middletown, Ohio, in pursuit of factory jobs in what eventually became the rust belt. He portrays poverty and addiction with a rawness that is almost painful to read.

The saddest part of "Hillbilly Elegy" is the sense of hopelessness and helplessness – the feeling that nothing can improve.

Vance’s family grappled with substance abuse and divorce. Although a job is no guarantee of happiness, to the unemployed, it at least offers hope that life can get better, that hard work can be rewarded and lead to independence. It’s a way to provide the most basic needs for those we love.  A job confers dignity.

All the recent announcements about economic development represent much more than an increase in tax revenue. Lives will change as a result of these new jobs. The ripple effect will be more than economic.

Kentucky is still a poor state with many problems. However, passage of right to work and other laws to improve the business climate (plus strategic use of tax incentives) has allowed Kentucky to compete for jobs that previously would have gone to other states. Case in point:  Braidy Industries picked Kentucky over Indiana.

Kentucky Republicans ran on a specific platform. They are following through on their campaign promises with a sense of urgency and focus.  Announcements of new jobs are becoming commonplace. Some will say it’s a coincidence. No matter; let’s keep those coincidences coming.

My C-J Column on Campus Free Speech

Reprinted with permission of the Courier-Journal

Here's the link   Previous efforts to cut and paste it ran in to formatting issues -- I will try to fix later.

POTUS's Kind Surprise

One of my childhood friends, Claudia Tenney, was recently elected to Congress for NY-22.  Claudia is a strong constitutional conservative.

She was at the White House last week as part of an Executive Order signing ceremony, and had a few minutes to visit with President Donald Trump.

Claudia's son, Trey, is an Annapolis graduate scheduled to deploy to Iraq, yesterday I believe. When Trump heard this, he called Trey to thank him for his service and wish him Godspeed.

It was so unexpected. It's true that his mother is a Congresswoman. But she is just one of 435, and a freshman.

Trump's thoughtfulness reveals a side of him not normally portrayed in the mainstream media. There is so much more to him as a person than the left understands. Thankfully, however, the American people get it.

God bless you both, Trey and President Trump.

Good For Trump on Syria Strike and MOAB

There has been some anxiety on the right about President Donald Trump's surprise bombing of Syria and then using the Mother of All Bombs ("MOAB" on Isis strongholds in Afghanistan.

I was relieved to see an American president acting like an American president again. Trump said he'd bomb the sh** out of Isis, and he kept his promised.

The Syrians lied to the Obama administration. As recent horrific pictures showed, the Assad regime did not get rid of its chemical weapons. That was a blatant, repeated lie to among others, America's secretary of state. We have a national security interest in countries not lying to our government about their possession of chemical weapons.

The pictures of the children dying from exposure to chemical gas called for a response on a visceral level. The lies to our government about the destruction of chemical weapons also called for a response. The two wrongs dovetailed into something that Trump was right to address forcefully.

I take seriously Sen. Rand Paul's concerns about the U.S. waging unconstitutional wars. There is no reason for Congress to fail to decline war in instances like Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf wars. Certainly those conflicts dragged on long enough that there was plenty of time.

But the strikes in Syria and the MOAB bombing in Afghanistan were in and out -- not protracted wars. A Congressional Declaration of War would have destroyed any element of surprise. And I think the bombings are also distinguishable because we did not send in troops.

Without analyzing precedents on the war powers act, these limited bombings strike me as constitutional.

Elaine Chao on Politico Podcast

Politico has started a new podcast called Women Rule and the latest episode features Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao. I recommend it -- particularly to young women looking to get ahead in male dominated industries.

Chao discusses immigrating to America as an eight year old who spoke no English and didn't know how to use a fork. Although I have heard Chao talk about this experience before, I am always struck by how much her family overcame, and their courage in coming here; Chao's mother stayed back in China with Chao and two of her sisters for three years before they were able to join her husband in America.

It's just extraordinary that Chao rose to serve four different presidents, two as a member of the cabinet. Her family illustrates the American dream. It never fails to encourage me.

Chao had some interesting insights in working in places where she was the only woman. She didn't like sports and therefore could not participate in the banter that preceded the work of meetings. And she decided that because she really was not interested, she would not try to learn a little something about sports and fake it; she was authentic to her own interests.

She was able to become included by virtue of her mastery of subjects like transportation and finance. Subject mastery, Chao observed, is empowering. Women tend to prepare more than men, Chao noted, and that has been her style as well.

Chao advised younger women to not be afraid of making a mistake, particularly misspeaking. In part, that comes from Chao's view of America as a land of second chances. It also reflects her observation that Americans are not like Asians -- who choose words deliberately and listen to others with the expectation they did likewise.  In America, there's a good chance no one will remember the mistake, Chao said.

In addition to insights about her leadership style, Chao gives some tidbits about her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Kentuckians will not be surprised to hear what a considerate spouse he is. Still, it's hard to comprehend the Senate Majority Leader doing laundry.

Tic Toc on Obamacare

The Wall Street Journal points out that we are literally running out of time to repeal and replace Obamacare; thank goodness that talks appear to be reviving.

A few points worth highlighting from the Journal:

• HHS Secretary Tom Price has considerable authority to make improvements while the House wrestles with the long term solution. Price can use legal waiver authority to give the states freedom to experiment with alternatives to Obamacare. No, the changes would not be permanent if done in this manner, but if they work, it would make for a stronger argument to make them permanent in legislation.
• 
  
• Here's where the time crunch comes in;  insurers are designing their 2018 products, which will require state approval this summer. More and more insurers will come to the conclusion that they would rather leave a locale than try to service it under existing Obamacare rules. That means less choice (or even no choice) for consumers.

Congratulations, Justice Gorsuch!

He will be an outstanding justice. His intellect is unquestioned. He's conservative. And as a friend who worked with him at the Department of Justice recalled, he is a kind and decent man.

Another friend who works for Concerned Women of America told me that CWA knocked on literally millions of doors to get Trump elected -- all because of the Supreme Court vacancy.

When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made a referendum of the open seat, he changed the course of the election and of history.  To all those Dems who are still whining about Merrick Garland,  if the Dems had won, Hillary Clinton could have renominated him. Nothing was stolen here. McConnell made the open seat the central question of the election, and the Dems lost.

Live long and prosper, Justice Gorsuch. 

Fentanyl is the New Heroin

The U.S. "Drug Czar" Richard Baum. recently sent a terrifying letter to Congress about fentanyl. That's the synthetic opioid that is increasingly being mixed with heroin, and causing numerous overdose deaths Louisville.

According to Baum's letter as covered by the Wall Street Journal, fentanyl is pouring into the U.S. from Mexico, Canada and even by mail from China.

Fentanyl is so powerful that just two milligrams will kill a person.  It's 50 times more powerful than heroin. Federal officials seized 668 kilograms of fentanyl last year -- enough to kill every man, woman and child in our country.

Fentanyl is also appearing in counterfeit prescription pain pills that are sold as something less potent than fentanyl; the consumer thinks she's getting one thing and ends up with fentanyl instead, without knowing it. What a nightmare.

Why GOP Needed to Nuke 'Em

Politico has a good piece by Josh Holmes, whom many Kentuckians will remember as Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's Chief of Staff.

As Josh, points out, Mitch's decision to invoke the nuclear option was set in motion years ago by Sen. Chuck Schumer.

ICYMI: My C-J Column on Cutting Federal Funds for Public Radio, TV

I actually like some of the content on PBS and would happily subscribe to watch Downton Abbey. Here's my column, reprinted with permission of the Courier-Journal.

There are a lot of things that poor people cannot afford. That’s why we need economic policies to allow people who want to work hard to escape poverty — not policies to make poverty more comfortable.

(Photo: NONE, New Line Productions)

 1655CONNECTTWEETLINKEDIN 29COMMENTEMAILMORE

Nightmare on Elm Street is not a film one associates with public broadcasting and as best I am aware, it has never aired on that august network. Yet its villain, Freddy Krueger, is an apt mascot for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB):  Both survive despite repeated attempts to kill them.

Many Republican presidents and presidential candidates have called to end federal support of public broadcasting since President Lyndon Johnson established it fifty years ago. The Trump administration’s proposed budget would end public funding for PBS and NPR.

It’s true that PBS has broadcast some wonderful programs over the years. I grew up watching Zoom and Masterpiece Theater. More recently, I watched every episode of Downton Abbey.

The success of shows like Downton Abby, however, demonstrate why federal tax dollars need no longer subsidize PBS, and its radio equivalent, NPR. Downton Abbey’s popularity was so immense that it could have charged a subscription. Further, each episode was preceded by tony infomercials for Viking Cruises or Ralph Lauren. The airing of Downton Abbey could have been funded with additional advertising.

When PBS was established in the late 1960’s, the public was generally limited to the three major networks. PBS added a fourth choice. Because these networks were broadcast over a finite spectrum, we could not have the hundreds of channels that cable offers.

MORE DISCUSSION OF BUDGET CUTS

►KET: Dedicated to lifelong learning | Shae Hopkins

►Kentucky history would be history | Goodman

►Trump budget beats up on Appalachia | Losey

►Budget cuts bankroll new waste | James Bovard

PBS was intended to provide programming that could not be found elsewhere. With so many avenues to air content today, it is inconceivable that some other network or channel would have failed to pick up a show like Downton Abbey; it would have been shown with or without PBS. Just as HBO now airs Sesame Street. Netflix likewise has tapped into the love for Downton Abbey by producing original series such as The Crown.

When Julia Child taught Americans how to make beef bourguignon on PBS, it was groundbreaking television. Now we have entire cable channels devoted to the culinary arts. PBS may have discovered Julia Child, but cable replicated the success of the French Chef with a new generation of celebrity chefs.

The free market has taken the best of PBS and not only emulated it but democratized it to serve a broader array of tastes.

Public Broadcasting was predicated on the anti-capitalist and elitist assumption that we need bureaucrats to select programming that is good for us, that will educate us and refine our sensibilities.

Technology, however, has made the public broadcasting model obsolete. Given today’s proliferation of cable channels, plus streaming from services like Netflix and Amazon, the market can provide content that formerly came from PBS.

Fifty years ago, it made sense for the government to subsidize radio and television stations for rural areas that would otherwise not have a station. Now those customers are moving online to download content. Even remote areas are finally getting high-speed internet service, which will lead to more educational and entertainment options than public broadcasting ever could provide. That’s a better use of federal tax dollars than funding the CPB.

► Something to say? Guide to submitting letters

Some will argue that poor people cannot afford cable or the internet and their children will be disadvantaged if they cannot watch PBS.  Although Sesame Street teaches pre-school skills, so do many books available for free at the library. There are a lot of things that poor people cannot afford. That’s why we need economic policies to allow people who want to work hard to escape poverty — not policies to make poverty more comfortable.

The federal government spends $445 million a year on public broadcasting. That’s 0.01 percent of the federal budget. As a portion of the federal budget, it’s a pittance. The same argument was made about earmarks: It’s not much money, so why bother eliminating them.

That’s the wrong way to think about the federal budget. The first question should be whether the budget item is so important to America that we should borrow the money from China to pay for it. The second question should be whether the budget item is an appropriate role for government — something that the private sector cannot or will not do instead of (or even better than) the government. Public broadcasting fails these tests.

But given that federal support of the CPB constitutes less than seven percent of PBS’s budget and less than one percent of NPR’s budget, these organizations should be able to survive without federal funding. Perhaps all those threats of cuts over the years have weaned the CPB from reliance on federal tax dollars.

Bridget Bush (Photo: Bridget Bush)

Those who don’t mind paying a portion of their taxes to the CPB can donate to it. Hopefully, upcoming tax cuts will free up money for all of us to make donations wherever we see fit. Or buy more polo shirts and take more cruises to fund the CPB the American way: through advertising.