Since the greatest threat to America’s future is a growing burden of government spending, I watched last night’s debate with hopes of seeing some evidence that either candidate understood that challenge and was determined to put Washington on a diet.
Needless to say, I didn’t have much hope for Obama, who has spent the past four years recycling Bush’s mistakes.
And I wasn’t too optimistic about Romney, either, though he’s tentatively open to entitlement reform.
Romney, however, did provide my favorite moment in the debate. He unambiguously said it’s time to wean PBS from the public teat.
I’ve already written about the need to defund state radio and state TV, so this was music to my ears.
But, as you can see from the attached image, I wonder whether Romney inadvertently put himself at risk.
We’ve already seen from the riots in nations such as Greece and England that people who get lured into government dependency have a tendency to lash out when faced with even minor cutbacks in their subsidies.
Well, Romney is suggesting cold turkey for the moochers at National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting system, so the Secret Service needs to be prepared for Big Bird run amok.
The most baffling thing about PBS is that several of its shows–Sesame Street, Barney, Wishbone–have made hundreds of millions, if not well over a billion, dollars in commercialization. Yet, despite this money and the amount affiliates pay for the programming, PBS somehow still needs government money.
Moreover, you hear people complain about marketing to children, yet PBS is exempted from these talking points while being one of the worse offenders.
You know I did a search yesterday on what creates economic growth in society. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but a May/June 1998 PDF published by Cato that reads as fresh today as the day it was written.
Since the truth is neither time dependent nor transitory, it should be dusted off and republished today (it was unpleasant to read on line)
The left never talks about growth, except for government; it was nice to hear Romney talking about it.
“Needless to say, I didn’t have much hope for Obama, who has spent the past four years recycling Bush’s mistakes.”
… Mistakes that Obama repeatedly criticized Bush for (nothing new here) during the debate. The difference between them, as I see it — and with this, I had to agree with what Obama said in the debate (only on this point and to this extent) — is that if government is going to raise spending, it needs to get the money from somewhere, and where does big G get the money from? Sesame Street?
That said and all joking aside, I don’t think Romney stands to loose anything by dissing Big Bird, but Ann won’t be invited as a guest on Sesame Street.
Muppets are moochers by choice, not because they have to be.
…And he broke the news to no less than PBS’ anchorman, who the rest of the mainstream media is already impugning for not having been biased enough in favor of Obama.
Catherine,
I was curious to see that Cato report. So here is its url:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v20n3/econgrowth.pdf
and yes, it does indeed need reformatting…
But that Cato report doesn’t seem to cover the two main causes for the dramatic German economic miracle once the second world war had ended.
These were currency reform and the elimination of price controls, both of which happened over a period of weeks in 1948. A further factor was the reduction of marginal tax rates later in 1948 and in 1949. The highly entertaining story can be seen at:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GermanEconomicMiracle.html
Don’t miss out – you’ll be delighted…
Chrisbd:
I followed the link and I did find myself delighted as advertised. I am doggedly working my way through the 1974 BBC production of World at War. The production had a through away line that post war German shortages were solved “by a bureaucrats unilateral decision to end price controls”
I knew there must have been more to the story but I never pursued it, now I know.
Thanks for posting both links.
That’s a disturbing picture.
Stephen you have a point, I hadn’t looked at the picture at all.
Last point in all fairness, I’m glad our host doesn’t snip at me the way I do at him. 😉 Oi, no edit!
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