America is headed toward a fiscal cliff, the U.S. military is being gutted by budget cuts, and the President has been focused on…Big Bird.
After Governor Mitt Romney mentioned in the first presidential debate that he liked Big Bird, but might want to make cuts to taxpayer funding of PBS, President Obama’s camp seized on the idea.
In a speech in Madison, Wisconsin, the President stated: “I just want to make sure I got this straight. He’ll get rid of regulations on Wall Street, but he’s going to crack down on Sesame Street. Thank goodness somebody is finally cracking down on Big Bird.”
Cuts to the military scheduled to go into effect on January 2, 2012, are 1,000 times greater than the total federal share of PBS. The President and Congress should be acting right now to stop this budget sequestration.
The President has promised to veto any legislation designed to keep the sequestration from taking effect, unless that legislation also adopts elements of his already proposed and unanimously rejected budget, which included tax hikes. With a recessed Congress and a recalcitrant President, it is not yet certain whether there is enough time to stop the devastating defense cuts from taking effect. We do know, however, that there is not enough time to play politics when it comes to our men and women in uniform.
In the meantime, the impending sequestration is already having negative effects on both the economy and the military. Defense contractors have already begun laying off workers, jeopardizing military preparedness, and the U.S. Navy is currently working toward reducing the number of its ships from 285 to 235 over the next 10 years.
Unlike Big Bird, the U.S. military does not have other sources of revenue besides the government. The military cannot make up $500 billion by putting on a telethon or selling action figures. Considering the consequences and the available options, it is unbelievable that cuts to Big Bird could be elevated to higher importance than cuts to our military.
Please, tell me more about how only weaponized keynesianism is valid. 0/10. To obvious. Troll harder next time
I read in a post regarding the Big Bird subject stating that the Sesame Street Workshop had revenues of $120 million in 2009 and that the guy in the Big Bird costume made $300K a year. Also, the Workshop has $20 million in the bank and is worth over $200 million. Could someone please fact check this?
That's right. The government has been way too generous with other peoples money. Areas have to be cut everywhere, eliminated anywhere and it has to start somewhere. America's military is not the place.
The point is that someone needs to look at the budget line item by line items and decide what is important or not. There needs to be a guiding philosophy to this. Romney brought up, is it worth borrowing money for or not as a guidance to managers in the various departments. It is obvious that the managers today are not given proper guidance in running their departments or they would not be having conferences with magicians etc. Fiscal responsibility as well as personal responsibility of every manager within the federal government to spend wisely needs to be developed into the culture of the government. So many people have been ruined in the past that this may take a generation or more to fix. But it must be done. This culture of responsiblity will be difficult in a Union environment unless the union adopts the culture first. They can be part of the solution or part of the problem. The problem needs to be solved regardless.