In the presidential debate, Mitt Romney announced that, yes, he would cut funding to PBS. Since then, an entire "War on Big Bird" narrative has seeped into mainstream media discourse. Fact is, though, 34 nations have a defense budget smaller than the yearly revenue of Sesame Street alone.
According to an International Herald Tribune article from a few years ago, Sesame Street earns over $100 million per year. That is twice as much as many sub-Saharan African nations spend on national defense. It is over ten times more than NATO member Iceland.
PBS receives $450 million from taxpayers, which forms a relatively small part of its overall operating budget. It has faced competition from an explosion of cable TV networks that offer much of the same educational programming as PBS.
The U.S. debt has topped $16 trillion this year. Neither Obama, nor congressional Democrats have proposed a plan to address it immediately.
International Herald Tribune Article
Defense Budgets
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