The recent criticisms of Mitt Romney's willingness to end subsidies to PBS merit laughter worthy of Tickle Me Elmo.
Governor Romney's remarks were far from a personal attack on Big Bird, Cookie Monster, or even Bert and Ernie. He's hardly calling for the stars of Sesame Street to be thrown out into the street. As his critics even acknowledge, the federal government accounts for only 15% of the PBS budget. If unseemly reality television stars can survive without taxpayer dollars, so, too, can Big Bird and his compatriots.
Those who challenge the proposed cuts ridicule their modest size. They argue that the $450 million in savings wouldn't mean much in the broader scheme of things. But, by this short-sighted logic, Solyndra's squander of $535 million is not a big deal either. Nor is the $90 billion in handouts President Obama offered to green energy as part of his $800 billion "stimulus" package in 2009.
The fact of the matter is that our nation is more than $16 trillion in debt. For the past four years, the federal government has run up $1 trillion deficits. In this past fiscal year alone, it was $1.1 trillion. Because we're spending far more than we take in, our government has no choice but to borrow the money and, eventually, pay it back with interest. China now holds more than $1 trillion of our nation's debt. In other words, taxpayers could be said to be funding not one, but two public television stations: PBS and Chinese Central Television.
Sesame Street's defenders laud the program as educational for children, an assertion which I don't question. I watched it growing up. But one has to wonder, if we don't heed the basic arithmetic lessons of The Count, what's the point?
After all, in spite of President Obama's 2008 campaign promises to cut the deficit in half, the budget math of his administration is a long ways from adding up. PBS subsidies, of course, are not the major drivers of our debt. What really requires reforms are entitlement programs that are already on the path to bankruptcy like Medicare. That said, if we're serious about restoring solvency, we need not be shy about putting non-essential programs on table, and PBS is one of those.
If we truly want to invest in our children's futures, we need to take steps to ensure that our government and economy do not follow the red ink of Europe. We need to ensure that we do not fall off this fiscal cliff. We need to ensure that their future will not be mired in debt and dwindling opportunities.
This election is about big choices. Governor Romney and President Obama have two very different plans. After four years in the White House, the president's record speaks for itself. He hasn't initiated the serious conversation, let alone provided leadership, on the burgeoning debt he once decried as "unpatriotic." Since he took office, the national debt has risen by $5.4 trillion.
Governor Romney is offering a new direction. He knows that for too long, our politicians have avoided the tough decisions that need to be made. He's simply asking if government support of Sesame Street is so critical that it's worth borrowing money from China and sending the bill to my generation. And he's giving the American people a straight answer: no. The Big Bird jokes may flourish, but our state of fiscal disrepair is no joke, and we owe it to young people today and the next generation to get serious.
Wha' do ya say?
I think of the tens of millions of other people who likewise shared these wonderful moments with their children.
I think only heartless and sick conservative Republicans can want to take away these moments from hundreds of millions of parents and children in the future. I am astonished that human beings can be so cruel.
My feelings turn to anger when I think that these same conservative Republicans have given trillions in tax cuts to the super rich to invest in cheap labor factories overseas.
Here's a idea. Why doesn't PBS take advertisements, just like the other networks?
It is because commercial programs and for-profit networks have failed to provide anything educational for our children that Sesame Street has been so successful for 43 years.
Stop trying to destroy the great things that the United States Government does to make life a little better for its citizens. Not everybody hates democracy and the United States Government the way conservatives do. Not everybody hates small children the way conservatives do.
Romney's willingness to defund PBS is less about the money involved and more about his character and heart, because federal funding of PBS was put in place to pay for terrestrial broadcasting in rural and underserved communities where lower-income folks don't have cable.
So what might happen to Big Bird after getting fired by Romney? Would he bounce back quickly or end up like other displaced workers, sitting on an inner-city step by Oscar and living in a trash can with no cable or AC. Will Big Bird fall into poverty and become obese and addicted to cigarettes because of Romney's Russian dealings with Phillip Morris? Let's hope not, but that would be good news for Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Food Inc., and BAIN.
No, huh? You people aren't serious about the deficit. You're just busting our balls, and the country's bank.
If we're going to subsidize these millionaires, why not Pixar, Universal Studios, etc......
They don't need taxpayer support anymore than Pixar does.
If you want to solve a problem that's in the trillions, you need to start talking about expenses and revenues in the billions. It's like the politicians who always bring out the budget and wail about the million dollars in federal money going to study hamster farming in the Adirondacks or something. Yes, that's a nice little example of silly spending there.
But as you point out, our problem is in the billions and trillions.
If you're a family that is behind in your taxes and your mortgage, with credit card bills in the tens of thousands, cutting back on a $5 Starbucks coffee once a month isn't going to make a big dent at the end of the year.
Plus, as we've seen, the public equates PBS with Sesame Street and the Muppets.
What politician wants to be seen as anti-Muppet?
Even if the argument is sound, and you could probably make a case for PBS being 100 percent funded by donors, it's a lost cause in the court of public opinion. People LIKE PBS. You could probably close a national park or two and save some money, but people LIKE parks.
Cuts to PBS are just a showy way of appealing to the far right, but there are plenty of moderates, who the GOP need this year, who would rather see one less fighter jet and one more season of Sesame Street, NOVA and the rest.