Let Big Bird Fly on its own Power
When should entertainment have claim on the public purse?
Congress will reduce the NPR and PBS budget from $200,000,000 to a mere $100 million. Our friends on the left are Outraged! Outraged!
Cartoon credit: Blue Girl’s “better half”
Our lefty friends (no friends of the free market) have different takes. Over at Blue Girl in a Red State there seems to be some confusion between work and charity.
Meanwhile, the Feminist Minority fears for a free press:
Take Action for Independent Media
The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to consider an appropriations bill Wednesday which will make drastic cuts in the budgets of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) from $200 million to $100 million.
In their ongoing efforts to control the media, the right wing is using the Congressional appropriations process to decimate public radio and television. We could lose this critical independent voice and quality programming.
Take action today! Click here to urge your Representative to stand up for the independent media free from partisan and ideological control by voting for full funding for PBS and NPR.
Big Bird can fly on its own. When The Dreamer was 18 months old we comforted her on camera when interviewed — by a stuffed animal we had paid for with real money. Plus tax. (Or more likely, a grandmother paid for with real money. . .) The Yellow Bird to the rescue!
A cool 100 million dollars. We could get one very nice, brand new F-22 Raptor. And the world would be a better place.
Peggy Noonan says, news flash: PBS is liberal. . . and that Democrats may even admit as much. . . (though, obviously, not the Fem Minority who seems to think PBS/NPR is an “independent critical voice”).
A civil hat tip to the liberal GrubbyKid.
See Mudville Gazette with the unsubsidized Open Post.
Right Wing Sparkle has more at PBS Funding: Is It Worth It?
Trey Jackson sick of taxes for Lefty Liberal Bile Hat tip to Trey for pointing us to Atlas Shrugs…
Atlas Shrugs can lift and move any debate especially on PBS
Dawn Patrol
The Dawn Patrol takes quite an effort to compose so if you find something in the Dawn Patrol and use it, a Hat Tip would be appreciated. Iraq Ailing Iraqi girl one step closer to operation (Star & Stripes) Rhma…
First, thanks for the linkage. My “better half” and I appreciate the exposure!
Just to be clear though — If you want to better represent the exact feelings of myself and my better half, you would have had to have typed the word, “Outraged!!” several more times, but with two slammers each. Just twice, with only one slammer each does not begin to convey our feelings at all.
And we are definitely friends of the free market, except when we are its enemy. And might I add that there is absolutely no confusion whatsoever at blue girl in a red state regarding work and charity. Having worked really hard for 25 years, no one’s every given me a gosh darn thing.
To conclude, please stop by often. My better half is only getting started and has other ideas in the works that I think you’ll find of interest! Thanks again!
First, thanks for linking to my site.
Second, not only did the House GOP drop funding by $100 million, they zeroed it out in the near-future. Now, a nice free-market trope is that we shouldn’t “fund entertainment.” Well, the market doesn’t solve everything, or we obviously wouldn’t have cases like Enron, or the like. If the GOP really wanted to save some money in the budget, then either raising taxes or cutting the military budget or medicaid or social security would be the place to do it. Trying to cheap out by cutting $100 million out of PBS is a political play to silence uncontrolled media. The CIA says that the USA budget is in the area of $2.338 trillion and PBS is around .008% of the total budget – not much.
Don’t believe that the market can bring good programming – or even programming that isn’t “liberal?” How about The American Experience, perhaps the best programs which showcases American people and history – a profoundly (small-c) conservative issue. One of the best recent programs was Victory in the Pacific, about the US Pacific Theatre in WWII.
You can’t tell me that any single corporate television station would produce any of these programs – that isn’t their job according to stockholders. Corporate media’s job is to make money – which is great (I like making money). They even come along and make interesting, and sometimes informative shows. But public television is distinctly different than stockholder-directed television: public television’s sole purpose is to inform the American public – and they do a fantastic job of that through shows like The American Experience, NOVA, Charlie Rose, etc.
If informing the public is liberal, then let us all be liberal.