Romney’s general overview of education, and his campaign in general, seems to be a reduction of the role of the federal government by returning issues to the states. With education, Romney believes federal funding should decrease to allow each state to govern the funding of their own schools as well as the measurements of performance of their own students.
Unfortunately, this came at the expense of Big Bird. While it was not the best move to use a cuddly character we all know and love as the face of federal budget cuts, the reason behind Romney’s comment is one that should be heard.
In the presidential debate on Oct. 3, Romney stated, “I’m sorry, Jim, I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually like you, too. 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. That’s number one.”
The ultimate question behind Romney’s desire to cut federal funding to public broadcasting is, “Is it worth borrowing money from China for?” In the eyes of Romney and most Republicans in the past, the answer is no. This campaign is not new to the conservative party. Only the big yellow beak associated with it is.
Romney did not express a desire to cut PBS as a motion against education. He instead intended to draw attention to the ways in which the country uses federal money, suggesting that the money used to support already successful programs like “Sesame Street” should be invested elsewhere.
Essentially, people forgot the ultimate motivation behind his comment. The economy is suffering, and therefore some of the unnecessary luxuries of life must go, like public broadcasting.
But with or without federal funding, “Sesame Street” and others like it will go on due to their forms of funding. Much of the funds for PBS come from its viewers through donations and advertising.
Truth of the matter, this issue has gotten more attention than it deserves. With our generation of social networking, Big Bird is something we grew up with and actually understand. So it wasn’t surprising when it began trending on Twitter and took over Facebook. Without this type of social media, the issue probably would not have received this much attention. Regardless, we can expect to see many Big Bird costumes this Halloween.
