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.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic17 min read
How America Became Addicted to Therapy
A few months ago, as I was absent-mindedly mending a pillow, I thought, I should quit therapy. Then I quickly suppressed the heresy. Among many people I know, therapy is like regular exercise or taking vitamin D: something a sensible person does rout
The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking
The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was

Related Books & Audiobooks