The Atlantic

<em>Sesame Street</em> Isn’t Just for Affluent Kids

Trump’s proposed budget would eliminate funding for public broadcasting, which has a proven record of helping kids in poor families.
Source: Larry Downing / Reuters

When the Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney suggested that parents in struggling rural and urban areas might not consider funding public television through the Corporation for Public Broadcast a good use of taxpayer dollars during an appearance on Morning Joe on Thursday, he may have thought his statements reflected their feelings and were backed by up evidence. He was wrong on both accounts.

Mulvaney was likely parroting the that PBS – with cultural programming like Masterpiece Theater and Antiques Roadshow – is too helped teach English to their young son . They watched him go on to collect degrees from both Harvard and the University of Chicago, and then work in the Obama White House—where I first heard his story from a mutual friend.

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