Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney pledged on Wednesday to cut spending for public television. During a campaign stop in Iowa, he said Big Bird should be supported with advertising and private donations rather than by public funds.
"We're not going to kill Big Bird," Romney told an audience in Clinton, Iowa. "Big Bird is going to have advertisements, all right? And we're going to have endowments for the arts and humanities, but they're going to be paid for by private charity, not by taxpayers."
Public television has long been a traget for fiscal and social conservatives. In March, Republican senators proposed legislation to cut all federal funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is the parent organization of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR).
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