The Big Bird problem

(Photo Courtesy of EvelynGiggles on Flickr under CC license)

By MARYANNE RAFKA, Guest Columnist

Mitt Romney – Republican nominee for the Presidency – stated in the debate last week that he would cut funding for PBS. He believes that PBS has been eating away at our budget and we need to cut all funding so our economy will go back to normal, without the bloated PBS spending, that is.

VIDEO: Mitt Romney Loves Big Bird (By WSJ)

PBS has become such a burden on American taxpayers, you see. I agree with Mitt, we have to cut PBS. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on PBS each year. The government recruits and trains people for PBS and sends them out on missions. We have had to cut funding from other programs like education to pay for our bloated PBS spending.

We have send PBS members to fight for us. Many have died. Many have come back psychologically traumatized from PBS. In fact, on years when even PBS tells us they don’t need more money, the government decides to increase their budget for no apparent reason. We love the recruitment it brings in for us.

We make ads with Big Bird on them saying, “Big Birds want YOU.” And it works. People fall for this. And the more people we have falling for this and joining our Big Bird PBS team, the more money we have to spend. And if anyone in Congress tries to convey the fact that maybe we spend a little too much on PBS, they’re unpatriotic.

We need PBS. We need all of its spending. Even when PBS is not fighting or recruiting for us, we need to give them more money. We need to. It’s in our constitution that one of the chief responsibilities of our government is to create a maintain PBS. And we think it’s so important, we have appointed the President as head of PBS.

He or she can do what it is that they want with PBS. He or she can ask for more money, more freedom regarding what they choose to do on PBS, and more recruitments. Even if no one wants to join PBS, the government has the right to draft people. PBS is just that important.

Isn’t that right, Mitt?

Oh, I forgot…take out “PBS” and insert “the military.” The most money in our budget goes to the military. The mere four-hundred million dollars we spend on PBS is not a drop in the bucket of not just our federal budget but the State Department’s budget.

The agency we should be cutting from because of all the bloat and wasteful spending, along with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security – these are the ones no one, not even the We-Need-To-Cut-Spending presidential candidate, wants to cut. But Big Bird…he’s eating up all of our money.

Oh, Mitt…if PBS is your main concern in regards to the federal budget, you and I are obviously living in two separate Americas.