After Shutdown: Administration Gives $445,000,000 to Corporation for Public Broadcasting

(CNSNews.com) - On the first day of the “shutdown” of the federal government, when members of the U.S. Senate were going to the well of their house to point out that the shutdown would prevent the National Institutes of Health from starting clinical trials for cancer patients and others facing possibly terminal illnesses, the administration was giving $445,000,000 to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, according to the Daily Treasury Statement.

That means PBS NewsHour, National Public Radio and Sesame Street got a taxpayer subsidy during the shutdown, but not would-be cancer patients at the NIH.

The $445 million the Treasury handed over to CPB was more than the $119 million the Treasury paid on the first day of the shutdown in interest on U.S. government debt that is held by the public. It was also more than $171 million in Social Security benefits the Treasury paid that day. But it was less than the $592 million the Treasury paid for Veterans Affairs programs on the first day of the shutdown.

The $445 million the Treasury gave to CPB on the first day of the shutdown was also almost as much as the $471 million the administration gave to the entire Department of Health and Human Services that day.

Via: CNS News

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Why Big Bird’s Federal Subsides Need to Go

The call to eliminate federal subsidies to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), such as Governor Mitt Romney’s recent statement, shouldn’t ruffle the famous fowl.

After all, not only does PBS not need taxpayer support, but because it inevitably entangles Big Bird in politics, it does him more harm than good.

Federal contributions to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which distributes money to PBS, totaled $444 million in FY 2012. While that may not be a lot in Washington, which spent a whopping $3.54 trillion that year, it is real money to most Americans.

But ending these subsidies wouldn’t break the bank for public broadcasting. In FY 2010 (information available to date), the CPB subsidies amounted to only 15 percent of public broadcasting station’s total funding. Other sources included listener and viewer contributions, university and foundation support, and business underwriting. Sesame Street itself received only $1.4 million in a federal grant through CPB in FY 2012. As Sherrie Westin, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Sesame Workshop, affirms:

[Sesame Workshop] receives very, 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.

Big Bird and his popular Sesame Street neighbors would not disappear if federal ties are severed. Westin adds that “when they always try to tout out Big Bird, and say we’re going to kill Big Bird—that is actually misleading, because Sesame Street will be here.”

The “Golden Condor” has quite a healthy nest egg, too: Sesame Workshop reported a net worth of $356 million as of June 2011.

Via: The Foundry

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