Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
It has been estimated that approximately 50 million Americans watched the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney that took place on October 3rd. Many viewers of the debate are diehard fans of Sesame Street. They were taken aback when Romney brought up the name of one of this country’s most well-loved TV avian characters that evening. It’s a good thing that John James Audubon wasn’t alive to hear the words that emitted from Mitt’s mouth in responding to Jim Lehrer about cuts that he’d make in federal spending if he is elected President:
“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. I 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 it.”
The following day, PBS issued a statement expressing disappointment that it had become a target in the political discussion the previous evening. Big Bird himself issued no statement on his own behalf. Since the debate, however, he has appeared on television entertainment and news shows and in a number of Youtube videos. It has been reported that our fine feathered friend was truly disheartened when he learned of Romney’s plan to eliminate funding for PBS programs like Sesame Street, the show that brought him fame and helped to make “Big Bird” a household name.
Big Bird will be happy to learn that his fans are organizing an event to show their support for him, for his fellow Muppets, and for PBS. The event is called the Million Muppet March. It is scheduled to take place on the National Mall on November 3rd.
Take heart, Big Bird!
PICTURES (From Million Muppet March site)
SOURCES
Million Muppet March’ Planned Against Romney (ThinkProgress)
‘Million Muppet March’ planned to defend U.S. backing for PBS (Reuters)
Swarthmore mom1, October 15, 2012 at 7:46 am
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/opinion/krugman-death-by-ideology.html?hp&_r=0 Yes, lack of health insurance does cause deaths, Mr. Romney.
Pointed out today that Ann Romney would not be able to get insurance because of her pre existing MS absent the ACA
Bron said:People who like Miss Marple and Opera can purchase dvd’s or stream from netflix or hulu, PBS is no longer necessary and only the 2.5% probably watch PBS anyway. I am pretty sure the 47% are more into Jersey Shore, WWF Raw and MTV.
You certainly swallow Romneys take on the 47%. I am on disabilty, I have paid taxes when i was able, many seniors who paid taxes when they worked are on SS, medicare. I do not watch jersey shore Raw, or MTV. I daresay many others who arte on fixed incomes/do not pay federal (but pay state taxes) do not as well. I also cannot afford netflix amnd certainly cannot afford the price of DVD’s. (I do not know about Hulu, if that is a paid service or not)
You seem to be someone who is not concerned enough about your own finances that you can afford to buy these buy things without worry. You also evidently believe te 47% is below you.
How sad, how shallow, how selfish…how republican
Bron, Patrick Moore was one of the founders of Greenpeace. He’s a Canadian I believe. I heard him interviewed on the radio. Greenpeace was a common sense organization when it was founded. Moore laments that when the Viet Nam war ended all of those protestors came to Greenpeace and hijacked it’s fundamental mission, radicalizing it beyond recognition.
LEE:
I am for working men and women who need jobs. You have to balance environmental regulation with job production. A pristine environment at the expense of jobs is nothing more than the old English Feudal system where the laird kept his land for his own hunting and fishing while the peasants were starving. Now using the natural resources are prohibited while the people are starved for jobs.
That is exactly what is going on now, the rich in the guise of Green Peace, The Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy are taking millions of acres out of production with the help of the federal government. We are becoming a feudal society with the elites in government as our lairds.
We already have enough land for future use by our children.
I am neither right nor left, liberal or conservative.
Elaine, I’m w/ you on the National Parks. I buy an annual pass which is good for all the parks. Bryce Canyon and Zion in southern Utah are incredible. I usually hit them on the annual trek to San Diego. When one hits 62 you can buy a lifetime pass for $10! My wife will hit it 15 months before me.
Bron,
National Parks are the playgrounds of the “common” people–not the rich. My family and I have enjoyed the times we have spent in Acadia National Park in Maine many time, White Mountain National Forest, Green Mountain National Forest, Great Smoky National Park, etc. We subsidize these beautiful places in our country for our own enjoyment–and for the enjoyment of our children and grandchildren.
Bron, I as many others am on a fixed income. I cannot afford the cover charges that would start to apply without fed assistance.
As to the environment, I do not have children but I worry for the land and environment, including air that we will leave to our children, their children and so on.
Repubs, and I do not know if you are one (you may have said elsewhere, or here and I missed it) tend to be for me and the heck with you. Dems are for we, I am for me but I also want to make sure that I do not just leave you in the dust (or unable to afford museums, national parks, etc.)
eLAINE:
“How about defunding wars and subsidies to oil companies, agribusiness, and other corporations”
I am definitely for doing that.
But I am not so concerned with the environment, people need work before the smelt needs water and the spotted owl needs trees. Being a good steward is important but sometimes we go to far.
The rich can buy their own square mile of pristine environment, the rest of us shouldnt have to pay to subsidize their playgrounds.
Larry Summers: Romney Tax Plan The Equivalent Of A Hamburgers And Ice Cream Diet
The Huffington Post
By Bonnie Kavoussi
Posted: 10/11/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/11/larry-summers-romney-tax-plan_n_1958982.html
Larry Summers has joined the growing list of people saying that Mitt Romney’s tax plan just does not work.
“It’s easy to say that ‘My plan is to eat ice cream sundaes and chocolate cake and hamburgers as much as I want, my plan is to lose 60 pounds, and my plan is to avoid painful exercise, and those are all my objectives and I’m committed to every one of them,'” the former top economic adviser to President Barack Obama said Thursday at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. “You don’t know quite where you’re going to go if you’ve got all three of those objectives.”
“This is the first time that the challenger’s errors have, on my accounting, been measured in the trillions of dollars. This is daughter of voodoo economics,” the Harvard economist said.
Romney plans to slash taxes in a way that would largely benefit the rich and deprive the government of hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue, while also claiming that his tax plan will not increase the deficit. Romney has promised to additionally reduce the deficit and slash government spending by 18 to 26 percent.
Though Romney has promised to slash both marginal tax rates and corporate tax rates, among other changes, he has been vague about which tax loopholes he would close to make up for revenue lost as a result. Lately, Romney has obscured the idea that he would cut taxes for the rich.
“I’m not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people,” Romney said at the first presidential debate last week, a statement he echoed Tuesday on CNN.
Whether Romney’s tax plan adds up has become a subject of contentious debate. The Tax Policy Center concluded in a recent study that Romney’s tax plan is impossible without raising taxes on the middle class. But Princeton economics professor Harvey Rosen found that Romney’s tax plan is mathematically possible without raising taxes on the middle class, assuming that Americans’ incomes grow.
“Let’s first imagine that, on January 20, Romney takes the oath of office. Of the many secret post-victory plans floating around in the inner circles of the campaigns, the least secret is Romney’s intention to implement Paul Ryan’s budget. The Ryan budget has come to be almost synonymous with the Republican Party agenda, and Romney has embraced it with only slight variations. It would repeal Obamacare, cut income-tax rates, turn Medicare for people under 55 years old into subsidized private insurance, increase defense spending, and cut domestic spending, with especially large cuts for Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs targeted to the very poor.
Few voters understand just how rapidly Romney could achieve this, rewriting the American social compact in one swift stroke. Ryan’s plan has never attracted Democratic support, but it is not designed for bipartisanship. Ryan deliberately built it to circumvent a Senate filibuster, stocking the plan with budget legislation that is allowed, under Senate “budget reconciliation” procedures, to pass with a simple majority. Republicans have been planning the mechanics of the vote for many months, and Republican insiders expect Romney to use reconciliation to pass the bill. Republicans would still need to control 50 votes in the Senate (Ryan, as vice-president, would cast the tiebreaking vote), but if Romney wins the presidency, he’ll likely precipitate a partywide tail wind that would extend to the GOP’s Senate slate.” Jonathon Chait, New York magazine
Bron,
How about defunding wars and subsidies to oil companies, agribusiness, and other corporations before we defund institutions of enlightenment and places where our citizens can enjoy unspoiled natural environments?
Eeyore:
I am all for defunding museums and charging a cover charge, same goes for national parks. And the arts and whatever else we can.
Bron,
And while you’re at it, do you want to end all subsidies to museums? Wonderful idea. We’ll be a nation of cretins. Looking forward to that day, are you?.
Bron,
You can cut subsidies to PBS when I no longer have to subsidize (with much more of my tax dollars) religion. Let churchgoers support their own. Just as you suggest…sink or swim on their own merits. And sure as hell, the catholic church can afford to support their own churches.
Elaine,
Varmints? I didn’t know that it was legal to shoot rabbits in Massachusetts?
Bill Maher on Mitt Romney:
Malisha,
Now ole varmint hunter Romney is going after Big Bird.
Oscar the Grouch was interviewed as “a well known member of the 47%” and he said that he could not support Mitt Romney because if elected, Romney would see to it that there was too much competition for his trash can as people tried to find places to live; this would drive up his rent based on the laws of supply and demand.
Romney ruffles feathers by attacking Big Bird
by Bill Press
October 15, 2012
The Marietta Daily Journal
http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/20493193/article-Romney-ruffles-feathers-by-attacking-Big-Bird?instance=special%20_coverage_right_column
Excerpt:
Who would have guessed? Of all the issues raised in the first presidential debate, the only issue that ended up having legs — was an 8-foot-tall yellow bird.
One thing for sure: had Mitt Romney realized that the one issue everyone would remember from that debate was not taxes, jobs, or health care, but Big Bird, he would never have promised to serve it up for Thanksgiving dinner. Pressed by moderator Jim Lehrer to give an example of what government-funded programs he would cut, Romney said: “I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it.”
Obviously, he had no idea how popular Big Bird is — and how little he costs. As executives at PBS were quick to point out, “Over the course of a year, 91 percent of all U.S. television households tune in to their local PBS station. In fact, our service is watched by 81 percent of all children between the ages of 2-8.” Eight million viewers tune in to “Sesame Street” each week.
PBS is a national treasure, of which “Sesame Street” is the crown jewel — and they’re both worth borrowing money from China for. Indeed, most Americans would rather borrow money from China to pay for PBS than for another tax cut for Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, and their billionaire cronies.
But the truth is, we don’t have to borrow from China to pay for PBS, because we can easily afford it. PBS gets only about 15 percent of its budget from government funds. Total federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — which supports both PBS and NPR — amounted to only $430 million in 2011, which is a mere .00012 percent of the 2011 budget.
One other important fact about public broadcasting: Unlike Mitt Romney, Big Bird is actually a job creator! As reported by Huffington Post, Sesame Workshop, which produces “Sesame Street,” made $46.9 million in revenue from licensing Big Bird, Elmo, the Cookie Monster and other characters in 2011 — and maintained a work force of 1,320 employees. Hasbro, the Rhode Island toy company behind “Let’s Rock Elmo” and other “Sesame Street” products, generates $70 to $75 million in annual sales and employs 5,900 people. Just like workers in the factories he bought when head of Bain Capital, Mitt Romney would put them all out of a job.
They don’t have “liberal birds” on the planet Romney thinks he is running for president of:
(NeoCon Planet: The Presidents of Kolob). Those liberal birds and other dummies will feel the wrath of Kolob if Mittster Rmoney is elected.