NPR flacks quip that their enterprise should really be called National Private Radio. That’s because of the purported pittance of its budget that it says comes from taxpayers — the aforementioned 2 percent. When you hear that nonsense, bear in mind that NPR’s lifeline — taxpayer underwriting of the CPB — has actually metastasized into about 9,000 percent of its original size. That pile of CPB dough, once channeled back to NPR through its “member stations,” is laundered of its “public” character because CPB masquerades (courtesy of federal law) as a private company. Indeed, it says it is a private non-profit company because the annual hundreds of millions it rakes in from you do not come directly from you; they flow through Uncle Sam. In Washington finance, this hocus-pocus makes you a “non-profit.” A profit, by contrast, is the grimy stuff Fox News earns by producing programs people actually want to watch.

I’d feel worse for Juan Williams if he hadn’t so contentedly exploited this arrangement. The real victim here is the public. And the real test is what Republicans do about that if the Tea Party tide sweeps them back into power. The CPB is a chandelier: a grossly irresponsible expenditure for a government that is flat broke. But it’s not even a rounding error compared to Obamacare. If they can’t bring themselves to repeal the Corporation for Public Broadcasting . . .