{"id":902,"date":"2012-10-10T12:15:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-10T12:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2012\/10\/10\/pbs-is-no-budget-bogeyman"},"modified":"2012-10-10T12:15:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-10T12:15:00","slug":"pbs-is-no-budget-bogeyman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=902","title":{"rendered":"PBS is no budget bogeyman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>I am baffled at the right wing\u2019s obsession with cutting federal money for programs that actually educate people.<\/p>\n<p>Take public broadcasting, for example.<\/p>\n<p>Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney\u2019s debate performance this past week has been hailed largely a success. But when he went off on the issue of government waste, he took dead aim at the Public Broadcasting Service and, that\u2019s right, Big Bird. <\/p>\n<p>There are literally thousands of more wasteful government programs than the money the government spends on public television. Why do right-wingers keep flogging public television when they trot out ways to cut government spending?<\/p>\n<p>PBS\u2019s programming \u2013 which comes to the Panhandle via KACV, based at Amarillo College \u2013 is educational at so many levels. It\u2019s children\u2019s programming has become legendary, creating the popular characters such as Big Bird and the whole cast of Sesame Street. It provides comprehensive news coverage of current events. Next month, PBS will show a documentary on the Dust Bowl, produced by the renowned filmmaker Ken Burns \u2013 and that broadcast will resonate throughout the Panhandle, which lived through that horrific event in the 1930s. <\/p>\n<p>PBS\u2019s contribution to the federal debt amounts to spitting in the ocean. <\/p>\n<p>If Romney and the base of his party were truly serious about the debt, they would start trotting out all the waste everyone on the planet knows exists in, say, the Defense Department. My strong hunch is that the savings realized right there could pay for PBS all by itself \u2013 and retain America\u2019s status as the world\u2019s pre-eminent military power.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am baffled at the right wing\u2019s obsession with cutting federal money for programs that actually educate people. Take public broadcasting, for example. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney\u2019s debate performance this past week has been hailed largely a success. But when he went off on the issue of government waste, he took dead aim at &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=902\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">PBS is no budget bogeyman<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}