The presidential debate, and mention of the Big Yellow Fellow has sparked a great deal of chatter about Mitt Romney and his desire to kill Big Bird. While it has made for some interesting internet chatter, the reality is that Big Bird has nothing to fear. According to an article on abcnews.go.com

Romney’s proposal to zero-out federal spending for public broadcasting will have little to no effect on Sesame Street’s budget because the show receives “very, very little funding” from PBS, Sesame Street’s executive vice president Sherrie Westin told CNN last week. Westin said the majority of the show’s funding comes from corporate sponsorships, product sales and donations.
“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,” Westin said. “Big Bird lives on.”

However, loss of the federal subsidy would likely have an effect on other programming. I guess the basic question is, How important is the PBS subsidy? My personal opinion is there are a lot of things that we are currently subsidizing with tax dollars that maybe don't belong. When things are good, I'm all for PBS and other subsidies, but when the going gets tough, it may be time to take a good long, hard look at where our money is going. When things get tight at home, we all take a look at things we don't really "need", like that latte everyday. It's nice to have those little extra things, but that's also where we start cutting when we need to. Personally, I don't cut the grocery budget to make sure I get my latte. Do you?

I'm in favor of the president (whoever he might be) taking a look at where belts can be tightened. Spending money we have to borrow should be carefully considered.

For the record, Romney said he likes Big Bird, and I like Big Bird too. Sesame Street is a wonderful program that does some really amazing things for kids. It's just that hungry kids

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