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PBS CEO Paula Kerger responded to Mitt Romney’s call for the elimination of federal funding for public broadcasting in an interview today with CNN’s Carol Costello. During last night’s Presidential debate, Romney told moderator and PBS veteran Jim Lehrer: “I’m sorry Jim, I’m gonna stop the subsidy to PBS. I like PBS, I love Big Bird, I actually like you too, but I’m going to stop borrowing money from China to pay for things we don’t need.” You can watch Kerger’s interview here.
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The federal government only accounts for 10 -15% of PBS funding. Certainly, PBS can make that up with more donations. PBS will need to work harder to raise these funds.
Romney is right. “If a program is funded through money borrowed from China, it needs to be cut.”
So, PBS under Romney or Obama get used to the idea that the US can no longer borrow funds to keep supporting PBS and so many other programs.
If the US has surplus funds…by all means it can subsidize whatever it wishes, but continued deficit borrowing is no longer an option if we are to get our finances under control.
You obviously did not listen to the entire video. Although that “15%” figure is noted above, Kerger explains that although PBS itself may be able to survive cuts in funding from the government, its partner stations throughout the country would not. These partnerships provide early education for the most needy children across the USA.
It’s called a business problem.
Smart people solve business problems if they are worth solving.
They don’t seek hand-outs. PBS needs to take responsibility for its own business…. or cease to exist.
Sesame Street will find a home elsewhere…. and everything else, honestly, WHO CARES? Nobody will miss their crap any more than any other TV show.
Since 2002, Pakistan received $20B in US aid. May 1, 2011 Osama Bin Laden was found and killed in a house near Islamabad, the capital city of PAKISTAN. Is this really good business?
Dear Sir,
Do you have children? If not you are speaking completely out of turn.
However, if you do have children, I can only hope you value your duty as parents to provide adequate education, not only at the establishment you attend, but more importantly outside the home. Please do not forget it is our job, our #1 job, as parents, to provide education to our children. It is not only the responsibility of teachers. They are there to supplement what we do in our own homes and in our own lives. Our children mirror how we live our lives as humans beings in general. Please never forget that they are smart and that they OBSERVE our behavior towards others.
PBS is a FREE source for early learning that truly impacts later growth in life. If you did not have access or your parents did not expose you to what is offered by PBS, I am sorry. It has impacted you. I can say nothing else, but that your lack of exposure to this “assumed” free resource has aided in your opinion of this extremely valuable source of learning to our nation’s children. Check out any PBS personality on any social website. People in their 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond still value the impact that Big Bird and beyond have had on them. And please understand, these are not failures. These are the people in our country that aid in developing this important sector in our community that is furthering our country in the right direction.
Consider the children that do not have access to other forms of education at home besides PBS. Yes, it is sad that another form doesn’t exist. But, based on my 10+ years experience living in urban areas and urban schools, it exists. And Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Grover and the other endearing people that live on “Sesame Street” are all some children have and all they feel love from. Don’t take that away,
Thankfully, I’ve had plenty of other influences, but I could have easily been in the other 50% of the country that did not. I do not come from wealth, I do not come from an affluent background that could BUY my education. I come from a very normal, average background that had the (although sometimes extremely difficult) ability to make it a priority to make my education #1. PBS was one of those assets that made me the intelligent, informed , understanding and creative adults that I am today.
Please consider not only those your interact with, but also those that do have any educational benefits whatsoever, at no fault of their own. PBS is of vital importance and has been, effectively, for many, many years.
Thank you your time,
Jamie Eckman
But the money doesn’t have to come from China. You could take .0001% of what goes to Defense in a year and fund PBS for the next century.
You could take .0001% of many things and fund all kinds of things…
But it isn’t the responsibility of the government to do this no matter how tiny a % it may seem.
PBS isn’t important, especially in these economic times. It truly is not.
Plus PBS should be able to figure out this problem without government hand-outs.
Sesame Street and PBS may not be important to you, but that alone does not make it unimportant. Education is far more warranted than most of what the government spends OUR money on.
And it is not at all hand-outs. The government should want an intelligent population, and where else should the money go? Into the pockets of the businesses that own both political parties?
CTW, which operates Seasame Street, rakes in $50 million a year (!!!) in merchandising alone. Jim DeMint found they made $200 million over the course of 4 years. I am sorry, but why am I paying for something that is, essentially, dangling shiny keys in front of kids?
S Street does make a ton of money in selling toys. Let them pay their fare share to other PBS stations
Mitt kills Elmo!
More likely the Frontline series really gets under the skin of some of his sponsors.
Stand by for more and longer pledge drives on PBS member stations!
Paula should be careful, CEOs of 501(c)3 corporations cannot make political endorsements like that without seriously running afoul of campaign finance laws. She is more of a danger to PBS than Mitt Romney is.
Meh. This was Romney hitting the talking points the base likes to hear. Republicans always say they’re going to defund PBS and it never happens. He also said he would increase funding to defense while cutting taxes on the rich and saving Medicare.
If PBS wants access to public funding, maybe should stop being the mouthpiece of Liberals and provide fair coverage to all parties?
You clearly do not watch the channel.
simple solution is for the PBS member station to lease (NOT SELL)Their sub-channel space to commercial concerns to generate revenue to make up for any shortcoming from the lack of federal funding.
Also, smaller PBS station groups should unite into larger co-ops which would save costs. NHPTV signed a deal with WGBH Boston to run the stations – Local programming still seen in NH,but master control is now in Boston.
I would like to see it go the other way with a household funding that subsidizes PBS entirely. I think the BBC is amazing and given our much larger population it is a real shame we don’t have a broader and more capable PBS.
I can’t find a single think I like about Romney
Well, if Romney’s criteria for continuing a program is “If we have to borrow the money from China…”, then be prepared for no more Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Education, the CDC, and countless thousands of other programs. We’re currently borrowing over $1 Trillion from China yearly. That’s a LOT of programs to cut.