Economic patriotism: Big Bird makes more than Mitt Romney and pays less in taxes

Poor Big Bird. Mitt Romney wants to throw him under the bus. That's what my liberal Facebook friends are saying. Romney will deregulate Wall Street and crack down on Sesame Street.

Oh, the humanity.

How about some facts?

Shows like Sesame Street are multi-million dollar enterprises capable of thriving in the private market. According to the 990 tax form all nonprofits are required to file, Sesame Workshop President and CEO Gary Knell received $956,513 -- nearly a million dollars -- in compensation in 2008. And, from 2003 to 2006, "Sesame Street" made more than $211 million from toy and consumer product sales.

Big Bird makes a cool $50 million a year. And thanks to PBS being a nonprofit organization, he doesn't pay a dime in taxes. I think that's known as "Economic Patriotism". Or something.

So go ahead, tell me again why we need to borrow money from China to subsidize a fictional character who's richer than Mitt Romney.

Occupy Sesame Street! Because Big Bird isn't the 1%. He's the 0.001%. And it's about time he paid his "fair share".

Posted at 13:08 by Chris Wysocki   [/media]   Comments | Perm Link |
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