Why snuffing Big Bird won’t balance the budget

Houston Chronicle ^ | 10/4/2012 | Loren Steffy

[MasterGunner01]

NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have to be totally cutoff from taxpayer funding. They are nothing more than spoiled liberal play pens with OPM [other people's money]. Let them sink or swim because they are FOR-PROFT organizations, even though they are classed as 501(c)(3) [non-profit] by the IRS.

[longtermmemmory]

there is no reason PBS should be tax exempt.

it is just enabling bias.

[Joe Bfstplk]

>>The way to balance the budget is to get the 25% of Americans that aren’t working back to work.

The way to do that is to get the illegals out of the country and demand that the drones work and eliminate
their welfare. It must be a living wage as the illegals arte living and sending money out of the country to their families.

[Katya]

Honestly it was the one issue “bone” I didn’t understand why he would throw out to the media during a debate, unless it was done to placate conservatives. NPR/PBS budget is miniscule comparatively speaking, and although I like some of their programming, I directly blame Sesame Street for promoting children’s dependence on television at younger and younger ages...but why debate that now?

[dfwgator]

Why should the government be involved in broadcasting in the first place?

[SampleMan]

Why snuffing Big Bird won’t balance the budget

But Big Birds rotting carcaus will serve as a great trail marker on the path to balancing it.

[longtermmemmory]

there is no reason PBS should be tax exempt.

it is just enabling bias.

[Let's Roll]

Definitely! Any of these PBS programs that are that popular will find a place on commercial TV.

Where they will be subjected to ratings like their competitors. If they can’t cut it, why were we subsidizing them in the first place?

[Katya]

I certainly wasn’t arguing that they should... I am absolutely opposed to it. However, bringing it up in a debate is a distraction... this is the sort of idiotic story the lazy media loves to run with.

My point being... have this debate AFTER the election is over.

[Mister Da]

Snuffing one Big Bird might not solve our deficit problem, but snuffing the THOUSANDS of Big Bird programs & their overpaid bureaucrats will make significant cuts to the deficit & partially remove the yoke of gov’t oppression from businesses & individuals.

Big Bird is an excellent place to start, showing the people that no cow or bird is sacred.

[Caribou]

Newt and the GOP fought this battle in 1996 and lost because a demoncrat congresswoman showed up at one of the many committee meetings with Bert and Erny puppets.

Well, that didn't really kill the try by the GOP to stop funding PBS but it did help the MSM spread the word about “killing off Big Bird”.

[count-your-change]

“The federal subsidy for PBS is $444 million. That doesn’t even move the needle on deficit reduction”

Problem is too many “too small to matter” expenditures are being made on the same basis. A few billion to this country or that, some study of studies that “only” costs a few million, a few hundred million to this, a few hundred million to that, and on and on.
The point is that it's borrowed money that cannot ever be paid back and increasingly not even paid for.

[smithandwesson76subgun]

A broad axe would be more appropriate.

[PeterPrinciple]

Snuffing one Big Bird might not solve our deficit problem, but snuffing the THOUSANDS of Big Bird programs & their overpaid bureaucrats will make significant cuts

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Repeat LOUD and OFTEN.......................

[bert]

Big Bird will not be snuffed.

Big Bird will be bought by Disney and become a stand alone channel and then get rich

[MasterGunner01]

This taxpayer funding TV (PBS) and radio (NPR) is a perfect example of government programs that should have been privatized long ago. There may have been a reason [doubtful] for such legislation in the 1940s and 1950s, but the radio and TV world has grown exponentially since then and there is absolutely NO reason to have the taxpayers funding these liberal playthings. Let them be self-supporting or let them die (like Air America radio).

[SparkyBass]

I remember a PBS ad campaign from years ago....

“If not PBS, them WHO?”

I irritated my wife by answering (every time)... “Discover, TLC, National Geographic,....” and on and on :)

Sell some ads, hire some folks, let the free market determine if you are worth remaining on the air.

[Safetgiver]

The federal subsidy for PBS is $444 million. That doesn’t even move the needle on deficit reduction. Later in the debate, Romney also said he’d cut subsidies for Amtrak — $1.42 billion — and the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities — another $146 million. That’s a total of just over $2 billion. He hasn’t made enough of a difference for it to even affect the rounding of the deficit number. It would remain at $1.1 trillion with the cuts he proposed....Ya know, cutting 444,000,000,1.42 billion and 146 million pretty soon adds up to some serious money. To paraphrase some dead asshole.

[dfwgator]

So let’s not even bother cutting anything.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Vince Ferrer. The point is, no one has any business spending tax dollars to prop up a partisan media agenda. Period. Related topics:

• Obama: 'Thank Goodness Someone is Finally Getting Tough on Big Bird'
• Obama mocks Romney as 'getting tough on Big Bird'
• Obama's Common Ground With Big Bird
• Mitt Romney: I stand with Big Bird (Real Romney petition-not satire)BARF
• Desperate Dems Hide Behind Big Bird
• Poll: Should the federal government cut its funding of PBS?
• Big Bird Has Stuck His Beak in Politics Before [Focus on this crap, ignore gas and food prices]
• Hope Is the Thing With Feathers (Desperate Democrats Hide Behind Big Bird)
• Sesame Workshop: 'Big Bird lives on;' we receive 'very little funding from PBS'
• 8-Year-Old's Letter to Romney Urges Him to Not Fire Big Bird
• TheDC Opinion: Big Bird can make it rain on his own.