(First Diary...try to be kind...unless you're one of those who believes that sometimes you must be cruel to be kind...Really, you don't. That's just a cliche.)
Finally, Mitt Romney has provided some DETAILS about his Budget Plan. (Those Tax Returns should be coming along any time now...)
In Wednesday's debate, Romney cleverly avoided accusations of avoiding the details by voluntarily PROVIDING some details about WHERE he wants to make cuts to balance the budget. Well, actually, only ONE DETAIL. But it's a start! So now we know that Romney intends to cut funding for Public Broadcasting. Romney admitted that he LIKES Big Bird, but he realized that children, and Muppets, don't vote, and even fewer than 53% of them pay income taxes, so his job is not to worry about those people. And Muppets.
Of course, not everyone was happy to see Romney getting real about making tough choices. For example:
But I mean really, consider the source! If Romney gets his way, this guy, like Big Bird, is out of a job! (Well, one of his jobs. He's probably still got the gigs at the Hayden Planetarium and the American Museum of Natural History...for now.) True, Romney likes to fire people (and Muppets), but this isn't personal, this is business, which is what government should be run like, right?
Yes, Neil, 0.012% doesn't seem like much, but this is the ONLY specific item that Romney identified for budget cuts, and we've got to start somewhere!
Assuming that NdGT is correct in that 0.012% figure, and assuming that Romney intends to cut 100% of PBS funding, the deficit reduction would be a whopping 0.04%
But I don't have time to go into all of the math, so to get a better sense of the budgetary impact of Romney's plan, please refer to the handy chart on the other side of the Orange Squiggly Shock of Beaker's Hair:
A 0.04% deficit reduction may not seem like a lot, until you consider that only about 2,500 similar cuts would balance the budget! In other words, after killing PBS, Romney only has to kill 2,499 more Big Birds, as you can see in the progress chart below:
Wow! You scrolled all the way down HERE? That's a first!
Oh, but wait! That's only if Mitt DOESN'T cut taxes! If he cuts taxes by 20% as he promises, that means we have to kill 20% more Big Birds! (i.e., another 500 Big Birds!)
Seriously Mitt, if you think you can find 2500 0.012% items to cut, I can see why you don't want to go into the details of your plan. If you explained 1 budgetary cut per day, you wouldn't be done until the year 2018. By then I'm pretty sure the U.S. demographics will have shifted enough that your chances of election would be even slimmer than they are now!
If there are other things that you're planning to cut that are bigger than Big Bird, what are they?
And no, there are no Social Security or Medicare Entitlements that will be eliminated by eliminating Big Bird and the Sesame Street Gang, thanks to the No Medicare for Muppets Act passed by the Republican Congress back in 1994.
Oh, and Mitt, one more question: If you don't think that educational programming for children is worth even 0.012% of the Federal Budget, what percentage of the Federal Budget are you willing to invest in other areas of education, such as teachers and schools?
Note: This first Diary started out as a comment on another Diary that went horribly wrong (My math was off by like eleventy-billion, but on the plus side, making a chart based on my original figures would have been nigh impossible), and thus I decided to try to overcome my shame by transforming my intended to be clever but turned out to be Romneyesque Awkwardly Stupid comment into a hopefully slightly more clever and less lame diary. The original diary with my lame comment was: Tweeters-Unite-Save-Big-Bird-Updated
and here's a few more diaries on the Big Bad Bird:
Why Big Bird is Important
Million Muppet March
Firing Big Bird
Big Bird was a Head Fake
Big-Bird-How-to-turn-last-nights-debate-into-a-win
So how long do you think it will be until Kos announces the new Big Bird Vertical to be displayed under the masthead between Labor and Comics?
Hey, if you're still here, give my survey widget a whirl, just so I know someone's out there!
7:29 AM PT: Big Bird hits the Big Time with a front page article by Laura Clawson:
Mitt Romney Vows to Fire Big Bird
Her figures for Big Bird's contribution to the welfare state are even lower than NdGT's: Rather than 0.012%, Clawson's sources have it at 0.00014%, (at least for 2011) which would mean NdGT's estimate is off by a factor of about 85. Hmmm...if that means that my calculations are also off by a factor of 85, that means I'll have to make a new chart with about another 210,000 Big Birds...Hmmm...Maybe 0.012% is close enough....