"do We Really Need That?"

[T3XT]

So I was sitting in the waiting room of the dentists' yesterday with a big TV at the front. As my ears were filled with the endless mediocrity being spewed from whatever children's programming being shown, a curiosity inside me forced my eyes to take a peek. When I saw the screen, the logo for the channel in the bottom-right caught my eye:

"PBS"

REALLY!? We have debts, deficits, subsidiaries, and criminal justice to pay for, and my tax dollars are paying for Clifford the Big Red Dog?

Which prompts me to make this thread. Name the things your tax dollars pay for that we just don't need.

[orangebomb]

At 11/28/13 06:42 PM, T3XT wrote: "PBS"

REALLY!? We have debts, deficits, subsidiaries, and criminal justice to pay for, and my tax dollars are paying for Clifford the Big Red Dog?

There really isn't that much money for public broadcasting like PBS, compared to many other programs. Most people don't give a shit about public broadcasting or public radio for that matter, especially since the last person {that I know of} to advocate heavily for public broadcasting was Fred Rodgers, and god rest his soul, but he's been dead for over a decade.

There are a lot of stuff that our tax dollars go to such as Social Security and National Defense, but also tons of other crazy crap too that would take forever to list, if you include pork-barrel spending as well. PBS has been very low on the priority list of the government for a long time, so they don't really get a lot of funding.

[kazumazkan]

Being bored in turn for a tooth fixing unless of course it came out of the dentist pockets

[24901miles]

2012 budget division

You would be hard pressed to find PBS or NPR anywhere in this without using the search bar.

[T3XT]

At 11/28/13 08:35 PM, 24901miles wrote: 2012 budget division

You would be hard pressed to find PBS or NPR anywhere in this without using the search bar.

"Corporation for Public Broadcasting - $451 million"

That's $451 million that could be spent on something more important. It's small in the grand scheme of things but it is another multimillion-dollar unnecessary exspense that we could do without.

Just imagine the money we could be saving if we cut out little things like this.

[Gario]

At 11/28/13 06:42 PM, T3XT wrote: So I was sitting in the waiting room of the dentists' yesterday with a big TV at the front. As my ears were filled with the endless mediocrity being spewed from whatever children's programming being shown, a curiosity inside me forced my eyes to take a peek. When I saw the screen, the logo for the channel in the bottom-right caught my eye:

"PBS"

REALLY!? We have debts, deficits, subsidiaries, and criminal justice to pay for, and my tax dollars are paying for Clifford the Big Red Dog?

I don't think roughly $1.50 from every American in the country in tax dollars is a big deal. It gives people who can't afford cable or satellite something of worth to watch on television (Clifford is a children show - not the best, but it's not completely morally devoid, either - most stations have them, if you watch at the right time). Often, the station has some very good programs on there (NOVA, Masterpiece theater, Keeping Up Appearances, etc... and that last one is hilarious, btw).

You don't like a program on that station, so all of a sudden it's "Wasting tax dollars". I don't like how much military spending this country does, but I understand that others in this country feel safer with this spending, and while I don't think it's the best place for the money to go I understand that this is a country that's not all about me. It's not all about you, either, and the sooner you realize that the sooner you'll be comfortable with most small government expenditures like PBS and NASA.

But in all seriousness, to keep with the thread's theme, military spending. I know it's a nice thing to have the strongest military power in the world, but a lot of that spending could certainly be cut with some improvement in management. I've seen how the military spends on contractors - it's just wasteful. If any other business ran like that they'd be out of business in a year.

[24901miles]

At 11/29/13 02:40 AM, T3XT wrote: Coporation for Public Broadcasting - $451 million"

That's $451 million that could be spent on something more important. It's small in the grand scheme of things but it is another multimillion-dollar unnecessary exspense that we could do without.

Just imagine the money we could be saving if we cut out little things like this.

You have to think about the services they provide though. NPR provides an unbiased look at current events on Radio. PBS provides educational programs for every age group. Small groups like the CPB do a lot with the little they have and still have to beg for donations from the public every year to make ends meet.

Why cut something that's less than half a billion dollars when we have groups like Military Expenditure. They spend $300 billion dollars a year and much of it comes down to paying people to stay in shape, get drunk every weekend, buy fast cars, and go to school. Anyone who is in the military will tell you how much intentional waste there is, literally burning millions of dollars of new equipment in bonfires to force purchasers to keep buying shipments.

[Ericho]

In that commercial, where did it even say that our tax dollars pay for that?

Dude, if it's wrong for tax dollars to pay for entertainment, then at least make it something truly awful like Uwe Boll or Seltzer and Friedberg movies. Those are probably the worst things you can pay for. On a more serious note, I guess tax dollars shouldn't be used to pay for things like weapons.

[T3XT]

At 11/29/13 02:25 PM, 24901miles wrote: You have to think about the services they provide though. NPR provides an unbiased look at current events on Radio. PBS provides educational programs for every age group.

That's all debatable

At 11/29/13 11:42 AM, Gario wrote: I don't think roughly $1.50 from every American in the country in tax dollars is a big deal. It gives people who can't afford cable or satellite something of worth to watch on television (Clifford is a children show - not the best, but it's not completely morally devoid, either - most stations have them, if you watch at the right time).

It's not my dislike for the programs that prompts my dislike for the spending - in fact, my childhood was spent watching many PBS programs. I'm saying something more philosophical: I don't think it's necessary. The government isn't there for providing our entertainment; we have plenty of other folks for that. Imagine what that 400+ million dollars could be used for. A few billion health care checks. Benefits for billions of our troops. Rehabilitation for billions of criminals. That's a lot more significant than making sure our kids have something to watch after school.

[24901miles]

At 11/30/13 06:45 PM, T3XT wrote:

At 11/29/13 02:25 PM, 24901miles wrote: You have to think about the services they provide though. NPR provides an unbiased look at current events on Radio. PBS provides educational programs for every age group.

That's all debatable

No it isn't. If it were debatable, you would debate it.

PBS is widely known for its daytime television aimed at toddlers, but they're also the producers and publishers of NOVA and other science series.

NPR provides radio shows which cover current events, local news, and intellectual topics.

Public media does this without bias, branding, marketing, and psychological imprinting, which cannot be said for a single one of its competitors.

[Gario]

At 11/30/13 06:45 PM, T3XT wrote:
It's not my dislike for the programs that prompts my dislike for the spending - in fact, my childhood was spent watching many PBS programs. I'm saying something more philosophical: I don't think it's necessary.

I understand what your point was. I also happen to disagree with it, as the programming does have considerable value as educational entertainment for children, and informative television for adults. This has considerable value - more than worth it at this price point, imo. To each his/her own, though.

Imagine what that 400+ million dollars could be used for. A few billion health care checks. Benefits for billions of our troops. Rehabilitation for billions of criminals. That's a lot more significant than making sure our kids have something to watch after school.

Billions of checks/bills/reformed criminals? These things don't cost pennies a piece, man. No, more like benefits for ~20,000 troops ($500M / $25,000... and that's a very conservative estimate of benefits to troops), Perhaps 50,000 hospital bills payed ($500M / $10,000... seems like a lot until you factor in roughly 112M visits to the ER are made a year), and enough money to detain ~4,200 criminals indefinitely (500M / 120K) or execute a mere ~42 criminals (500M / 12M). I can't say the annual cost of rehabilitation, but I doubt it's cheap. All of these assume that you dedicate all of the money toward any one of these things - numbers drop dramatically when you spread them out.

A decent form of edutainment benefits far more people than this (~5% of America a year, from the numbers I could find), and the benefit isn't really trivial, either.

[Entice]

At 11/29/13 02:40 AM, T3XT wrote: Just imagine the money we could be saving if we cut out little things like this.

A negligible amount
Running a deficit doesn't mean that the government has to pinch pennies, and even if it did something more effective should be done, like slashing military spending

[KILLER80804]

Why are you so surprised? Government has been wasteful and stupid for millennia, America is no exception.

[The-Great-One]

Yeah, PBS. In which PBS News is one of the more serious and honest news programs we have. As well as Dinosaur Train, entertaining and educating our children. Also cartoons like Clifford the Big Red Dog and Arthur which are safe for children to watch, entertaining, and can be accessed by everyone with the means to get a simple antenna hook-up.

[NeonSpider]

Serious, or troll?

If serious, what else would you cut? NPR? NASA? Public schools? The US Postal service? EPA?
And where would you divert the funding to? US Military?

If troll, 10/10

[Richard]

At 11/29/13 02:40 AM, T3XT wrote:

At 11/28/13 08:35 PM, 24901miles wrote: 2012 budget division

You would be hard pressed to find PBS or NPR anywhere in this without using the search bar.

"Corporation for Public Broadcasting - $451 million"

That's $451 million that could be spent on something more important. It's small in the grand scheme of things but it is another multimillion-dollar unnecessary exspense that we could do without.

Just imagine the money we could be saving if we cut out little things like this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBS

Take a moment to actually read about what you are bashing. ;)

[laughatyourfuneral]

Well this goes for mostly U.S.A but i know for a fact that Diplomacy is cheaper than weapons, and better for international prestige.

[SmilezRoyale]

PBS is one of the only items on the federal Budget that I would strongly bet could easily fund itself through conventional television network means.

Of course the psychology behind federal budgets is rather interesting. Almost every item of federal spending can be lumped into one of two categories.

1. Areas that are acknowledged as wasteful but are regarded as too small and insignificant to bother cutting
2. Areas that are massive in terms of expense but are regarded as essential

[Feoric]

At 11/29/13 02:40 AM, T3XT wrote: "Corporation for Public Broadcasting - $451 million"

That's $451 million that could be spent on something more important. It's small in the grand scheme of things but it is another multimillion-dollar unnecessary exspense that we could do without.

Just imagine the money we could be saving if we cut out little things like this.

Wow, look at those savings: .012% shaved off of FY2012 expenditures. Now we're getting places.

[Light]

At 12/2/13 09:29 PM, Feoric wrote:

At 11/29/13 02:40 AM, T3XT wrote: "Corporation for Public Broadcasting - $451 million"

That's $451 million that could be spent on something more important. It's small in the grand scheme of things but it is another multimillion-dollar unnecessary exspense that we could do without.

Just imagine the money we could be saving if we cut out little things like this.

Wow, look at those savings: .012% shaved off of FY2012 expenditures. Now we're getting places.

In spite of the abysmal amount of funding that PBS receives, it still manages to provide an immensely beneficial public service to the people of the U.S.

I think we should increase its funding, not decrease it.

[Dr-Worm]

At 12/2/13 09:02 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: PBS is one of the only items on the federal Budget that I would strongly bet could easily fund itself through conventional television network means.

That would defeat the whole purpose of public broadcasting, though. Having a platform for informative, educational, quality programming that isn't beholden to commercial interests is a huge benefit to the public (especially for children, who are basically outright assaulted with consumerist messages on any other TV channel). As a "conventional" network, PBS would necessarily have to give over large chunks of airtime to advertisers who are not working in the public interest, and even potentially change some of its own content to placate those advertisers (becoming a subscription-based channel like HBO or Netflix would dodge this issue, but that would be an even more fundamental betrayal of the goals of public broadcasting for obvious reasons).

And that doesn't even get into how the channel's programming would inevitably be altered if PBS had to compete with other commercial networks for ratings. I think a quick glance at the fates of most other networks that were ostensibly founded on principles of providing informative or educational programming (TLC, A&E, Bravo, History, Discovery, Biography, Animal Planet, Nat Geo, and so on, as well as 24-hr news networks like CNN, FOX News and MSNBC) plainly illustrates why PBS in its present form provides such a vital, unique service, and why it would not be able to sustain that service if it had to function as a conventional network.

[The-Great-One]

Better question. Why are your tax dollars going towards congress men and women who don't know how to run the country? If you want to cut anything out of government, let's start at congress' salaries.

[Psycho666]

Personally, I loved Clifford the Big Red Dog when I was a kid. Sure, maybe he was just a tool to reacquaint children with the color red in a post-McCarthy era, but he was all happy, goofy, and stupid. Everything a fucking child needs, everything that everyone on this website has rightly outgrown and learned to despise.

So unless you are a drooling, pants pissing, 'I wamt mah mummy' little kid, leave the dog alone. He's for children, not you.

[The-Great-One]

At 12/4/13 08:47 PM, Psycho666 wrote: Personally, I loved Clifford the Big Red Dog when I was a kid. Sure, maybe he was just a tool to reacquaint children with the color red in a post-McCarthy era, but he was all happy, goofy, and stupid. Everything a fucking child needs, everything that everyone on this website has rightly outgrown and learned to despise.

I never liked Clifford the Big Red Dog, even as a kid. I didn't even like Sesame Street. I liked Arthur and Mister Rogers. Both of those shows taught me a lot. ESPECIALLY Mister Rogers.

[Camarohusky]

At 12/4/13 10:46 PM, The-Great-One wrote: I never liked Clifford the Big Red Dog, even as a kid. I didn't even like Sesame Street. I liked Arthur and Mister Rogers. Both of those shows taught me a lot. ESPECIALLY Mister Rogers.

It is not required to enjoy every program in order think that PBS as a whole is worth while.

[The-Great-One]

At 12/4/13 11:20 PM, Camarohusky wrote: It is not required to enjoy every program in order think that PBS as a whole is worth while.

Oh I agree completely, just stating my thoughts on Clifford the Big Red Dog. There were a lot of great programs on PBS and there still are. My nephew and I would watch Dinosaur Train on PBS every morning. I thought it was more fun and more educational for him... than Go, Diego, Go! or Bubble Guppies.

[Shade]

At 12/1/13 03:22 AM, KILLER80804 wrote: Why are you so surprised? Government has been wasteful and stupid for millennia, America is no exception.

Because Anarchy is so much better right?

[contra1848]

Frontline has to be one of the last bastions of good journalism.

[X-Gary-Gigax-X]

There are about 4-5 jobs the government needs to do,

Defense

Lawyer salaries

Courts

The patent office

I cant think of much else that you or I can't do on our own. The individual is extraordinary in that he or she can fill almost any void, short of military and law (and the odd exception of the patent office)

[Camarohusky]

At 12/5/13 01:31 PM, X-Gary-Gigax-X wrote: I cant think of much else that you or I can't do on our own. The individual is extraordinary in that he or she can fill almost any void, short of military and law (and the odd exception of the patent office)

This ain't the 1700s anymore. The most complex of occupations are no longer so simple as to allow the person to be able to focus on policing, hunting, building and maintaining roads, generating power, putting out fires and so on.

The private sectors is VERY good at somethings and absoluetly horrific at others. Communal services should never be second to profit. Our current healthcare system is a perfect example of how profit only serves to hurt the public in a social service.