Letters: Romney and PBS funding

Re “Republicans for ‘Sesame Street,’” Oct. 16

Jo Ellen Chatham’s Op-Ed article is a compelling argument for maintaining federal funding for PBS. I would also like to hear her views on Mitt Romney’s desire to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood and to switch Medicaid to a block-grant program.

Surely Chatham’s compassionate stance on early childhood education for the disadvantaged is reflected in her feelings about healthcare for low-income women and others. Assuming she expresses similar compassion for these people, I would like to know why she is voting for Romney and encouraging others to do the same.

David Olmstead

Ventura

Chatham writes eloquently about the value of PBS and bewails Romney’s pledge to defund it. But she neglects to mention the Republicans’ reason for cutting the federal government’s umbilical cord to PBS: Its journalism is fair-minded and attempts to present a picture of the world as it actually is. This is not acceptable to the Republican leadership and its wealthy donors.

No one doubts the value of the PBS children’s programming that Chatham extols, but that really isn’t the point. Romney and his backers want to dismantle PBS because it doesn’t march to the beat of their ideological drummer.

Bob Lentz

Sylmar

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