Continuing the longstanding conservative tradition of attacking NPR, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy recently hosted professor Mark Browning to use some highly questionable math to determine that “25 percent of NPR's funding” comes from taxpayers. Browning, an English professor at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas, cited his recently published op-ed in the New York Post in defending this dubious claim.

During the interview on the November 22 edition of Fox & Friends, Doocy highlighted what he found to be a “brilliant” part of Browning's calculations -- the claim that because NPR donations can be written off as tax deductible, they're really costing taxpayers tons more than NPR leads us to believe. Doocy said:

And then, something I never thought about -- and this is brilliant. They get 64 percent of their funding from gifts, from individuals and businesses and foundations and stuff like that...And of that money, a lot of it is tax-deductible, so you could argue that that is coming out of our pocket as well.

How does Browning himself describe this part of his theory? He calls it “the only iffy part” of his “analysis.” Here's what he told Doocy:

Right, and that's the only iffy part of my analysis, is just how much of that is deducted and therefore subsidized by the government. And there's no way that I can know that, and there's no way that NPR can know that. And that's where that 25 percent -- well, maybe it's more like 30, maybe it's more like 20. But it's still a considerable amount.

Actually, he thinks his math here is less than “iffy.” In his Post op-ed, he calls it “impossible.” From the op-ed (emphasis added):

The lion's share of member-station budgets, some 64 percent, comes from individual, business and foundation gifts. Clearly, these aren't tax dollars -- but they are tax-deductible or tax-sheltered dollars.

Could all donations to NPR stations come from people who don't itemize deductions? Such a conclusion strains credibility. It's far more plausible to assume (as I do) that wealthier, more tax-exposed individuals give larger gifts, resulting in average deductions in the 25 percent tax bracket. This places another 16 percent subsidy from the taxpayer into the member station's coffers. (A $64 gift results in $16 tax savings.) That assumption is probably the closest to impossible math that I would dare.

[...]

This takes us back to [NPR spokeswoman] Anna Christopher's claim that these “figures and assumptions are simply inaccurate.” Given that the figures are drawn from NPR's own materials, one wonders how she questions them.

The assumptions, on the other hand, are not quite so sacrosanct. After all, what 501(c)(3) organization can quantify the tax brackets of each of its givers?

It is, indeed, “impossible math.” Perhaps the accurate figure is closer to 20 percent -- but it may just as easily be closer to 30 percent. What seems incredibly clear is that NPR enjoys far more than 1 percent to 3 percent taxpayer support.

So what Browning is arguing is that because donations to NPR are tax-deductible, taxpayers are indirectly footing the cost of private and corporate donations to NPR, at a level at which we cannot guess and no one, by his own admission, can truly know. This doesn't sound like math we can trust. Yet Fox is telegraphing Browning's suspect calculus anyway.

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