Before Mitt Romney said he was going to stop the subsidy to PBS, even though he likes Big Bird, at the first presidential debate, Sherrie Westin, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Sesame Workshop, told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien that cuts to public broadcasting will not ‘kill Big Bird.’
Westin says, “Sesame Workshop receives very, very little funding from PBS. So, we are able to raise our funding through philanthropic, through our licensed product, which goes back into the educational programming, through corporate underwriting and sponsorship. So quite frankly, you can debate whether or not there should be funding of public broadcasting. But when they always try to tout out Big Bird, and say we’re going to kill Big Bird – that is actually misleading, because Sesame Street will be here.”
Oh, how funny, a quality program has commercial value, what a unique concept. Perhaps if PBS would stop being a predictable and boring propaganda outlet, and hire some creative people with differing political beliefs, they could be a viable commercial entity as well. Unfortunately, that would be a contradiction to their mission, as a taxpayer funded mouthpiece for Liberalism.
It’s interesting that Romney has identified less than a tenth of one % of the federal budget to cut, but he can’t share with Americans which of our tax credits and deductions are going to be eliminated under a Romney Presidency. The disconnect between specificity on minutia and outright evasion on policy that would materially impact every American is illuminating.
@Tom:
It is interesting that PBS needs any taxpayer funding. Elmo alone provided enough profit to run that left wing station for decades. Elmo pajamas, Elmo chairs, Elmo taking dolls, Elmo shirts, Elmo everything. Not to mention Big Bird and Cookie Monster. And let’s not forget the Elmo road show. So why are taxpayers still having to fund PBS?
As to Romney’s sharing of what tax credits he will abolish or what deductions will be eliminated, perhaps you missed the part of our Constitution where those items are under the control of the Congress, and a president can only make recommendations? Obama says he wants to cut taxes for the middle class, but he really doesn’t have the authority to do that. Only Congress can. So even if Obama wins again, he can’t raise taxes on the “rich” (any person who earns $200K/yr is now considered “rich”) without the approval of Congress.
Can someone point out where in the Constitution it authorizes the government to fund a media outlet? Scrapping funds not only saves money but it slaps down overreach of the government. Just think, if we limited government spending for what is called for in the Constitution we could balance the budget, create a huge surplus, and pay down the debt. Wishful thinking since the only one to have done that was Andrew Jackson.
Mark Steyn: