I am tired of all of these bandwagon PBS fans.

I never said at all that they were purely government funded. You are very good at just making up things that were never said from a quote.

previous poster said something like 12% is government funded. Why do they deserve the 12% is what I am asking. If a company can't succeed without assistance, and they aren't something that is needed in every day life, why do they deserve any government handouts?

They give money to the farmers to grow corn to burn as fuel in our cars and all it does is raise our food prices and certainly hasn't done anything to lower fuel costs. Even with the subsidies it still costs more to use E85 instead of regular gasoline.

you should do a search about how many private sectors get funding and tax credits by our gov't

But to say PBS is pure gov't funding is nonsense.

the same reason why gov't pay for education of children....

if you got money you get to go to a private school, if you can't afford a private school, you can at least go to a crappy school...

At the end at least no one remains uneducated..

So what type of things you think the gov't should only fund?

Every once in a while Ryu stumbles on to something intelligent. Most people that bring up the oil industry don't have a clue what they are even talking about when it comes to government subsidies but that is a whole different topic.

Why should the government be subsidizing any private industry? They give money to the farmers to grow corn to burn as fuel in our cars and all it does is raise our food prices and certainly hasn't done anything to lower fuel costs. Even with the subsidies it still costs more to use E85 instead of regular gasoline.

The biggest argument I hear in defending PBS is a list of shows and how great they are. And I agree with many of them. To me that says that they should be able to generate enough revenue to stay on the air. I would be willing to bet that without continuing to get the free ride they get now that the shows would get even better and would reach an even larger audience?

For people wanting to continue the subsidies, why do you favor limiting the audience to what it is now instead of trying to expand it to reach even more people?

The biggest argument I hear in defending PBS is a list of shows and how great they are. And I agree with many of them. To me that says that they should be able to generate enough revenue to stay on the air. I would be willing to bet that without continuing to get the free ride they get now that the shows would get even better and would reach an even larger audience?

Every once in a while Ryu stumbles on to something intelligent. Most people that bring up the oil industry don't have a clue what they are even talking about when it comes to government subsidies but that is a whole different topic.

Why should the government be subsidizing any private industry? They give money to the farmers to grow corn to burn as fuel in our cars and all it does is raise our food prices and certainly hasn't done anything to lower fuel costs. Even with the subsidies it still costs more to use E85 instead of regular gasoline.

The biggest argument I hear in defending PBS is a list of shows and how great they are. And I agree with many of them. To me that says that they should be able to generate enough revenue to stay on the air. I would be willing to bet that without continuing to get the free ride they get now that the shows would get even better and would reach an even larger audience?

For people wanting to continue the subsidies, why do you favor limiting the audience to what it is now instead of trying to expand it to reach even more people?

The government (in itself) cannot fund shit. It is not a business and does not make money. The government is meant to reallocate what WE pay in taxes. I.e, we don't pay taxes, where do they get money from? It is OUR money that gets misappropriated and thieved every day. We give them more credit then they deserve.

How clueless does someone have to be to conclude that Romney doesn't like PBS?

The point is that we shouldn't be borrowing money from China to fund it. If there is so much support for it and the shows are something that people want to watch then PBS should easily be able to generate the funding it needs to keep it on the air without subsidies from the government.

Forcing PBS to compete with other stations would likely even improve programming and improve the quality of the shows that are aired. Currently there is no need to step up and make improvements because the money is going to keep rolling in from the government no matter how little effort they put in.

It's a lot like General Motors. They got into trouble by making cars for years that nobody wanted to buy. Instead of letting GM fail and forcing them to restructure under Chapter 11 and change the way they do business Obama bails them out with taxpayer money and essentially gives more power to the unions and "saves the auto industry" And what happens? GM continues to build cars that nobody wants to buy like the Chevy Volt and the only way to get people to buy them is to subsidize the sales with even more taxpayer money and money borrowed from China.

PBS has plenty of good shows that should be popular enough to compete with other stations. I say give them a chance to prove they are worth keeping around without the subsidies.

This is the problem with the argument, as Romney said no such thing, though that it how the argument has been framed by Romney's detractors.

It's an example that was made to get the discussion going about the role of government. I think that Romney is right, and eliminating funding to many, many federal programs is going to help us get on the path to solvency, but he most certainly did not say that cutting government funds to PBS would balance the budget. Anyone making that claim is being disingenuous at best.

Forcing PBS to compete with other stations would likely even improve programming and improve the quality of the shows that are aired. Currently there is no need to step up and make improvements because the money is going to keep rolling in from the government no matter how little effort they put in.

Unlikely. Quality and in-demand are not synonyms. Consider this:

http://i.imgur.com/kQPEp.png

Now, obviously that's a joke, but the underlying point does hold up. The free market does not give you "quality" shows. It gives you Snooki.