Ken Burns: Romney's war on public TV (PBS) is a loss for USA

[DinahMoeHum]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/10/09/ken-burns-romneys-war-on-public-tv-is-a-loss-for-usa/1623125/

(boldface emphasis is mine: DMH)

(snip)
Over the course of a year, 91% of all U.S. television households -- 236 million people -- tune into their PBS-member station. Federal funding accounts for about 15% of the money necessary to make public broadcasting possible. For every dollar in federal funding invested in local stations, they raise an additional $6 on their own, including contributions from millions of people who voluntarily support their community-based work. It's such a tiny, tiny part of the federal budget, approximately 1/100th of 1%, that you have to question, why pick on that?
(snip)
In the middle of filming The Civil War in the late 1980s, I had the good fortune to meet with President Reagan in the White House. When I told him I was a PBS producer working on a series about the Civil War, his eyes lit up. He told me stories of seeing the old Union veterans marching down the center of Dixon, Ill., on the Fourth of July when he was a boy.

Then he asked me how it was funded. I said I received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (something else Romney has vowed to eliminate) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes this funding. Those funds had, in turn, brought in corporate and foundation monies.

Reagan put both hands on my shoulder and said, "That's it! We need public-private partnerships. The government primes the pump, and then the private sector has the motivation to get involved. Good work! I can't wait to see the finished film."
(snip)


Price of everything, value of nothing: sums up Romney and Ryan in a nutshell. Reagan, an actor, obviously new the difference right then and there. (even if he was a Republican)