Asheville Citizen-Times
U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-Waynesville, on Thursday voted for a resolution calling for the removal of all American armed forces from Afghanistan, and he voted against legislation that would eliminate federal funding for National Public Radio.
NPR came under fire recently after a member of its upper management team was recorded making derogatory comments about the tea party and suggesting that the news organization would be better off without taxpayer money. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports programs distributed on NPR and PBS, receives $430 million in federal funds, although NPR gets only about 2 percent of its revenue from the federal government.
In voting against defunding NPR, Shuler noted that the news network has 30 million listeners nationwide, many of them in rural areas like Western North Carolina.
“Public radio is often the only source of free, reliable national and international news and public safety information,” Shuler said in a news release. “This senseless bill would have a devastating impact on Western North Carolina and other rural areas, where funding for public radio is already scarce and stations depend on federal funding to stay on air.”
The bill passed the House of Representatives, 228-192, with one member voting present.
Chad Nesbitt, chairman of the Buncombe County Republican Party, said the vote supporting NPR, which Republicans perceive as having a strong liberal bias, is “typical of Heath Shuler.”
“It just goes to show you the con artistry he had during his campaign and the con artistry he has now in deceiving conservatives out there,” Nesbitt said. “NPR is using federal funds to support someone else's personal agenda.”
The Afghanistan resolution, which called for the removal of American troops from Afghanistan by year's end, was submitted by Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich. It failed by a margin of 321-93.
Shuler said he voted for the resolution because American troops went to Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida forces and “have done all we have asked of them.”
“It is now the longest war in which America has ever been engaged,” Shuler said, adding that our troops have fought bravely. “They have also worked tirelessly to develop a stable and responsive democratic government there. That task, however, cannot be completed by American military action. It can only be accomplished by the Afghan people.”
With a massive national debt and more than $454 billion already spent in Afghanistan and another $113 billion requested for next year, “the time has come for our troops to come home and for the Afghan people to stand up for their nation,” Shuler said.
Military leaders and President Barack Obama have planned for a troop pullout that would begin in 2014. Nesbitt said the Republican Party believes in “completing the job” in Afghanistan and that he would defer to the military assessment of leaders such as Army Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees operations in Afghanistan.
Petraeus has said the U.S. has made progress in Afghanistan and needs to let the plan work.
