. . . “Romney: I’d cut PBS, Obamacare, arts subsidies,” is running over a Romney interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley. Asked for specific budget cuts, Romney listed “the subsidy for PBS, the subsidy for Amtrak, the subsidy for the National Endowment for the Arts” and “the subsidy for the National Endowment for the Humanities.”
Obamacare has to be repealed. Romney’s comments are a breath of fresh air, but I wish he would have said repeal Obamacare instead saying “cut.” Congressional Republicans appear to be committed to repeal; so let’s say the word “cut” was a slip of the tongue. As to the other “cuts”:
Bush the Younger with a Republican Congress could not stop the PBS subsidy. In the same vain, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Republicans say they would shutdown the Department of Education. Ronald Reagan wanted to do it and he couldn’t. Still, Romney gets high marks if he is serious about the four he listed. The thing that puzzles me is his avoidance of the world “shutdown.” Let’s face it, “shutdown” is a positive word when you are talking about federal bureaucracies and programs
The fact is: PBS and Amtrak could continue as private sector businesses, while the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities cannot transmute into profit-motive entities because they are federal bureaucracies that produce nothing of value —— their primary financial function is paying bureaucratic salaries and benefits. They either have to be shutdown, or become charities surviving on VOLUNTARY contributions. I don’t see charitable entities in the cards even though donations would be tax deductible. Ultimately, tax deductions are passed onto the backs of all taxpayers. That is no bargain to be sure, but a tax deduction is nowhere near as bad as direct tax dollar funding and subsidies.
PBS can rightly be called an arm of the Department of Education using tax dollars to promote a political philosophy that most Americans do not subscribe to:
In addition to targeting adults with left-wing programming, PBS advertises itself as “America’s largest classroom” through “educational media” which “helps prepare children for success in school and opens up the world to them in an age-appropriate way.”
But Mary Grabar and Tina Trent revealed, in a special report for the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism, that the “educational materials” from public broadcasting are characterized by an “unrelenting ideological slant” with a goal of “re-educating children into becoming far-left activists.”
They explained, “By creating primary materials through programming and reporting and then producing syllabi packaged by age group based on those primary materials, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has evolved into perhaps the single most influential voice in the nation’s classrooms, while defending their own taxpayer funding streams by doing so.”
Their examples included “…lessons that glorify the Black Panthers and riots and protests of the 1960s, present rocker Patti Smith as a ‘patriot’ for singing songs that condemn President George W. Bush, vilify Wal-Mart, and sanctify environmentalist Rachel Carson.”
Romney Wants to End Federal Funding of Public TV
Cliff Kincaid Thursday, August 30, 2012
Romney Wants to End Federal Funding of Public TV
Subsidizing PBS in any amount is no different than tax dollars funding the propaganda efforts of every violent religion, every evil cult, and every crackpot ideology that comes along. If forcing one group to subsidize the political ideology of another group isn’t a violation of the First Amendment there is no logical justification for the first ten words in the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, . . .
I’ll give Romney the benefit of the doubt and assume he will attempt to enforce the First Amendment where others failed. Should he succeed, one can only pray it won’t turn out to be rerun of ACORN’s lost subsidy; i.e., say funding has ended but do not actually stop it.
Parenthetically, Planned Parenthood is another subsidy joke. It’s against the law to pay for abortions with tax dollars, but Planned Parenthood is still getting tens of millions a year.
Finally, I could not have written this message had Michele Bachmann won the nomination. She does not mince words:
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