Will You Be at the Million Muppet March?

Oh the horror; Mitt Romney is threatening to cut funding for public broadcasting. Incidentally, government subsidies make up 12 percent of the PBS budget. Imagine if that is cut and Sesame Street needs to lay off, say, Oscar the Grouch? On the other hand, imagine if PBS makes up that supposed shortfall with funding from where all the rest of its money originates…corporate funding? If PBS is so important, what corporation wouldn’t be overjoyed in lending a hand to keep such important programming on the air? Why, corporations will be falling all over one another to get in on such a lucrative proposal and come out smelling like the good guy…the guy who rescued public broadcasting from the wicked schemes of the evil rich.

As soon as Mitt Romney announced that if he became president he would cut public funding to PBS, the seas began to churn. As evidence that some people have more time than they know what to do with we have the Million Muppet March. Who were the brainchildren of such a clever idea? Two individuals apparently had the idea simultaneously, and went to different branches of social media to get their 15 minutes of fame; Michael Bellavia (43), an animation executive from Los Angeles, and Chris Mecham (46), a university student in Idaho. Look, I went back to school through my 40s and into my early 50s while employed full-time to get my Bachelor of Science degree but I don’t think I would ever refer to myself as a college student. So, who is this 46-year-old who is identified as a university student? Maybe he should get a real job. I wonder how much public assistance he’s getting while he plays the part of university student at age 46. Maybe he should be concerned about how long the funding will last for him to continue on as a lifetime student.

I really don’t think the Muppets are in need of any type of public sympathy march. The Muppets, as a matter of fact, are part of the evil 1 percent. The Jim Henson Company was originally sold in 2000, for $680 million to a German media company that fell on hard times and had to sell the company back to the Henson family in 2003, for $78 million. Finally, nine months later, Disney bought the property for $75 million. While admittedly the company lost value since the death of creator Jim Henson, it seems to me that originally selling the company for $680 million, buying it back for only $78 million, and finally reselling it for $75 million still left the Henson family with quite a windfall at $677 million; putting them clearly in the stratosphere of the evil 1 percent. I’m finding it hard to feel bad for the Muppets or Big Bird, for that matter. Again, it turns out that the liberal fuss about PBS and Sesame Street is all fashion and no form.

And then there’s Big Bird himself, now on the list of endangered species because of Mitt Romney’s callous attitude toward him. Actually, I think Mr. Caroll Spinney (aka Big Bird since 1969) is actually more endangered by the vitriol of the 99 percent because he himself is of the 1 percent pulling down a comfortable $314,072 a year. Yes, Big Bird is in need of the Million Muppet Marchers to continue to secure his over 300k salary which maybe he is in jeopardy of losing when Mr. Romney cuts off the 12 percent subsidy to public broadcasting. Actually the other Sesame Street characters average between $300,000 and $450,000 per year in salary as well. Not too shabby for people having to subsist on a government hand-out.

And what of the Sesame Workshop itself? PBS awarded the Workshop $1.25 million in 2011 and $1.4 million this year. These figures represent a mere 2 percent of the Workshop’s operating budget. But, truth be told, the Sesame Workshop reported losses of $10.8 million dollars in 2011 and has announced this year that they will lay off more than a dozen employees. In the vein of Mr. Obama’s war on the rich, couldn’t Oscar, Big Bird and the others agree to contribute more by taking less home each week and help get things solvent? Maybe Sen. Harry Reid should ask for 10 years’ worth of Sesame Workshop’s tax returns and find out what’s going on; after all, it is a partially public funded entity.

Bottom line here, do we really need to print money or borrow it from China so we can give it to the millionaires over at the Sesame Workshop?

As for the fortunes of the beleaguered Sesame Workshop, so dependent on the U.S. taxpayer for a handout to stay on the air…former CEO Gary Knell, who left Sesame Workshop to run things at NPR, pulled down a meager $988,456 in 2011. I can understand why people are so upset that Sesame Workshop might lose its government funding. Sesame Workshop Executive Vice President Sherri Welsh said, “The Sesame Workshop receives very little funding from PBS. So we are able to raise our funding through philanthropic, through our licensed product, which goes back into the educational programming, through corporate underwriting and sponsorship. So, quite frankly, you can debate whether or not there should be funding for public broadcasting. But when they always try to trot out Big Bird, and they say we’re going to kill Big Bird—that is actually misleading, because Sesame Street will be here…Big Bird lives on.”

BTW, does it bother you that Sesame Workshop, while living on a government handout, was spending money on lobbying and exporting its programs to foreign countries for profit?

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity that doles out the public funds to NPR and Sesame Workshop, received $441.1 million this year and President Obama has sought an increase in that amount in his most recent budget proposal to $445 million. All the while the U.S. taxpayer and our broken economy are languishing under a mountain of debt to the tune of $16 trillion all on the backs of our children and grandchildren.

Don’t you wish Mr. Obama showed as much concern for the U.S. taxpayer and your children and grandchildren as he seems to show for Big Bird and NPR? Remember this as you get ready to pull the lever, Mr. Obama, in the wake of a 9/11 terror attack on our embassy in Libya and the brutal murder of four U.S. citizens there, spent a week on the campaign trail trying to tweak people up over Big Bird while the denial game was played full court in Washington and we were told that the incident in Benghazi was an innocent demonstration gone wild over an anti-Muslim video. Not enough money for security at foreign embassies but Mr. Obama and his minions are worried about the millionaire Big Bird losing a few dollars of what looks like spare change.

And if you are still wondering why public funding of the news is self-defeating, read this story about how a New Hampshire public radio station edited a debate tape to fix a Democrat’s revealing answer to a question about a Greenhouse Gas Initiative. No bias at work here on publicly funded radio.

And finally, on a completely different subject (NOT), this just in…Proof that Western culture is now officially bankrupt and the “Give them more circuses” mentality to dumb down the citizens of this once great country is alive and well…

“Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” a TLC reality TV show about the life and times of a 7-year-old beauty pageant contestant is reported to have had more viewers that the Republican National Convention.

Seriously, does anybody care that our economy is on the verge of collapse? If anybody out there thinks this is not so, please respond here and tell me how we will get out of our predicament and how it will not be the undoing of us all.

Million Muppet March? I think a much more appropriate name would be the Million Moron March.