Mitt Romney Wants to Fire Big Bird. The Monster!

[evildevil]

Romney's Big Bird comments spark response from the bird himself

Uh oh.

In Wednesday night's first presidential debate, Republican candidate Mitt Romney upset an unlikely...person?

"I'm sorry, Jim. I'm going to the stop the subsidy to PBS. I like Big Bird. I like you," Romney said.

Debate moderator Jim Lehrer works for PBS.

Comments

[lickety_split]

CRYING @ THIS POST OMG

[carazon]

It's quite simple. Republicans like Mitt Romney do not want Education to be readily accessible to the people, especially lower income people. If he really cared about government spending, he'd look at Defense, not programs like these.

[layweed]

Seriously. The cost-overruns of the military-industrial complex we have has probably wasted many many many times more money than the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has gotten from government subsidies.

[fenris_lorsrai]

and a lot of that is just bad bookkeeping. My father did government contracting and the military routinely paid late. REALLY late. Six months was about standard, the worst was TWO YEARS. and all those contracts are written with penalties. As individual he couldn't really afford to go after them to pay the late fee in the contract because then he was off the vendor list. so if they didn't pay it, but paid balance, well, they paid. But big ones, oh yeah, they could get those fees out no problem. and the military STILL paid late.

maybe they've improved, but a lot of the cost overruns were simply late fees for not paying vendors in a timely fashion. Paying one vendor late, eh happens, routinely ALWAYS paying late fees for paying them all months or YEARS late, that really runs up the tab.

[layweed]

I think it's fairly standard for some of the major contracts, especially the critical ones which the government can't afford to let slip through (major new ships, planes, etc). But then there's also those stories you hear coming out of post-reconstruction Iraq about how contractors charged the federal government obscene amounts of money for everyday items.

e.g. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/30/us-contractor-in-iraq-charges-pentagon-00-for-7-control-switch-report-finds/

Sorry about the source, couldn't find anything else offhand.

[kitbug]

what

i forgot the debate was last night i thought it was tonight and i haven't watched it yet

what

[theartistprince]

All you missed was a ton of lies and rudeness on Romney's side and missed opportunities on Obama's.

[roseofjuly]

Basically, Mittens said that one way he would reduce the deficit is by cutting funding to PBS. Then he apologized to Jim Lehrer, who works for PBS, and to Big Bird, whom he says he likes.

[bellichka]

this post is fucking glorious. A+, OP.

[thecityofdis]

i can't even explain to you how much i was waiting for this post.

it's everything i hoped for, tbqh.

[lickety_split]

This post is everything AND MORE.