Storming the PBS Gates Again

The BushCo Administration released its huge $2.77 trillion budget proposal yesterday, and folks are getting down to some of the nitty gritty parts of it--including yet another assault on PBS funding. Here are some details from today's Studio Briefing at IMDB:

The Bush administration has once again called for huge cuts in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Under budget proposals sent to Congress on Monday, $53.5 million would be cut from the $400 million due to be doled out to public TV and radio stations in 2007 and another $50 million in 2008. In a statement, CPB chief Patricia Harrison said she was disappointed in the administration's proposal. Harrison, a past co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said that she nevertheless understood that "the hard choices facing the administration, Congress and the nation as hurricane reconstruction, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue and entitlement spending take up a growing share of federal dollars." A far stronger statement came from Jeff Chester, executive director of the public-interest group Center for Digital Democracy. "The Bush White House is taking an axe to help chop off Big Bird's head and turn Elmo out into the streets," he said, adding that he thought the primary goal was to curtail the ability of public broadcasters "to critically report the news."

There's more on the flip...

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The up-and-coming FireDogLake blog adds:

This is so indicative of this Administration: if it doesn't do something for Bush and his cronies, then why should he care?

Well, here's a reason why -- because poor children in this nation face school systems that have less then adequate resources, since the federal government has given them a ton of "no child left behind" mandates without funding them, and PBS represents a stop-gap for a lot of these kids in terms of early childhood learning. Since you've already cut the budget for head start, for child support payments and for medical assistance for these poor children, I'm drawing the line at Elmo.

It's time to hit the fax machines and the phone lines, gang. Contact your Representatives in Washington and tell them this is a budget cut too far. Do it for Elmo.