One of the few specific policy proposals Romney made last night included his promise to stop federal funding of PBS, saying "I’m sorry, Jim, I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I like PBS, I love Big Bird... But I’m not going to -- I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it."
China owns $1.149 trillion of our debt. Our total debt is around $16.149 trillion, meaning China holds about 7% of it. PBS's annual subsidy is $450 million. 7% of that is $31.5 million, which is less than Romney made in 2010 and 2011 while running for President. It's a trivial amount of money (in government terms), but apparently Romney thinks being willing to off Big Bird will earn him credibility as a fiscal guardian. If voters don't bother to actually look at the numbers, he might get away with it. Of course, he has good reason to think most people won't look at the numbers, since voters' knowledge on important matters is so often hugely wrong.
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Republicans always talk about cutting PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts. Serious students of cutting government recognize these as ploys to pander to them while the candidate in the same breath defends a broken "entitlement" system. Romney's going to give the baby boomers the same thing Obama will - free money at the expense of us younger generations.
Sesame Street is worth $400 million. Enough said.
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