Romney wants to cut funding for PBS and Sesame Street

[RC1979]

Well, aside from that photo, big bird needs some big help and fast

 

[beaker]

Television commentators from all political positions have been mentioning the Big Bird incident, but few of them actually inform the public of the fact that Sesame barely takes any federal money.

15% of federal money according to NBC, or $450 million. Which the pentagon spends every six hours. http://www.decaturdaily.com/stories/Federal-subsidy-for-Big-Bird-and-friends-450-million,104493
Thats not anything to sneeze at!

I love how Republicans would rather kill off PBS than dare take a dime from the war machine or corporate/foreign government handouts.

I guess its more American to give Saudi Arabia and Israel billions of dollars

 

[beaker]

Because they hate anything that promotes peace, happiness, tranquility, tolerance, and equality.

And Conservatives wonder why most of America laughs at them as they do Honey Boo Boo family. I almost feel sorry for conservatives...well til I remember so many of their constiutents say horribly homophobic/racist/misogysnistic/anti science nuttery

If this is the line of thinking for Christian Conservatives, America is in deep trouble

 

[jvcarroll]

15% of federal money according to NBC, or $450 million. Which the pentagon spends every six hours. http://www.decaturdaily.com/stories/Federal-subsidy-for-Big-Bird-and-friends-450-million,104493
Thats not anything to sneeze at!

I love how Republicans would rather kill off PBS than dare take a dime from the war machine or corporate/foreign government handouts.

I guess its more American to give Saudi Arabia and Israel billions of dollars

Um, that's not quite right either.

• Only 12-15% of the total PBS budget comes from federal funds.
• The Center for Public Broadcasting (not PBS) received $444 million dollars in 2012.
• PBS received only $26 million from the CPB.
• 93% of Sesame Street's production costs are covered by self-sufficiency and independent donations.
• Part of the remaining 7% is funded through PBS which, again, receives over 85% of its operating budget from non-federal money.

So while $444 million is nothing to sneeze at, Big Bird is barely given a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of those dollars while the federal government spends billions upon billions of dollars, in so many other areas that no, $444 does not make one bit of difference to the federal budget.

Imagine a large carnival-sized jar of jellybeans. Now imagine a speck of poop from a gnat waaaaay at the bottom of the jar. That's how much PBS gets and Sesame Street gets a small percentage of that.

 

[HandsomeFrog]

Made these myself.

For anyone who doesn't get the first one, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_City_(film)
(WARNING SOME MATURE CONTENT ^)

 

[D'Snowth]

I love how Republicans would rather kill off PBS than dare take a dime from the war machine or corporate/foreign government handouts.

Of course. Republicans LOVE war. Why, I don't know... maybe they love the glory of being "heroes", and having all kinds of medals pinned on their chests for killing people in other countries that supposedly want to kill us.

 

[dwayne1115]

We can sit here and complain about one party or the other, but do we really have the right to? How many of us (myself inculded) really know who is representing us and our states in Washington. Do we know what they belive do we know what they are fighting for? A lot of us will sadly have to say no to these questions becuase it's easy for us to say "yes that is a real problem and needs to be fixed" and "Well there doing it all wrong" insteed of us really knowing what is going on with our leaders.

I fill that each state should recive a report card from there congress men and women and from there state senators. make them all more accountable for there actions, and if they start doing things that the state dose not like then they should be replaced.

See It's not only about the President, he is just the one that most people point there fingers at and say "It's your fault" when that is not always the case.

We can always say well it was this one party or the other but, do we really know if our congress men and women, or our senators are passing things that we may or may not agree with.
I say get more involved write your congresmen and women, and senators. Find out where they stand on the issues that matter to you and your state It's time Americans started knowing what is going on in Washinton.

 

[jvcarroll]

We can sit here and complain about one party or the other, but do we really have the right to?

Considering that this is America, we do have the right to complain.

Bickering between the parties is what has left the country behind. Our President had a very hard time passing anything due to the fact he didn't have a majority vote in congress and the Republican leadership made it clear that their "top priority" was to make Obama a one-term president. Health care, the country its citizens took a backseat to a partisan grudge. Republican leadership refuses to deal with the President because they're upset that they lost the last election and that's a big problem. This has happened the other-way-around when we had a Republican president, but never on this scale. Even if you don't like Democratic policies, much of the blame for the country's stagnancy resides with the Republican leadership.

Before anyone blames the two-party system, it is a historical fact that once a third party becomes competitive enough it replaces one of the two parties. For better or for worse we will always have a two-party system.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Bickering between the parties is what has left the country behind

Yup, basically both parties are guilty at various times of putting their little competition ahead of what's good for the country.

 

[dwmckim]

I hope the folks at SS follow this with some more positive press for Big Bird - like a new viral video or something, similar to Cookie's. Let's be reminded of WHY we love Big Bird, instead of worrying about what his fate will be.

The day after the debate, Big Bird tweeted "My bed time is usually 7:45, but I was really tired yesterday and fell asleep at 7! Did I miss anything last night?"

You know what's kinda funny? This is all happening right after the 43rd season debuted. This is getting SST so much more publicity than Elmo: the Musical and it's all FREE! Not just from news media but social media - Big Bird was trending on twitter during the debates and people all over have been proclaiming their Muppet Love. Desbite all the talk about how SST is largely self-sufficient outside of PBS, let's not forget that they've not been that hot financially the last few years (the layoffs, their bare bones style since season 40), and hopefully this leads to a massive outpouring of support from corporate and private donors.