I'm Tired of the Ad Council

[MickintheHam]

For over a year the radio air waves here are bombarding me with Ads produced jointly by the Ad Council and Health and Human Services, or Department of Education, or FEMA. Or it's an AD Council AD with Obama and the Dept of Education telling me I need to push a kid to stay in school. These type advertisements have always seemed to be around as public service announcements, but that is not the designation on these commercials.

I'm not talking about 2 or 3 ads a day. I am hearing 2 or 3 of these things during every 2 minute station break. For the little time I spend listening to the radio each day, I hear at least 10-15 of these things. What does the government pay to produce these ads and get them on the air? Do I really need the government telling me this is the last day before I could be hit by an EF5 tornado? Don't the local television stations do a satisfactory job without the feds?

It would seem to me that all of these ads could be cut from Federal Government spending as we go over the cliff. That way I would only have to be reminded by the AICPA to "Feed the Pig".

[Doc]

The amount of waste in our government is beyond anything the normal person comprehend. I suspect we could produce a balance bugdet and a surplus if we would only spend money on required functions. Things like commercial promoting how to get food stamps, free phones, free internet, programs like cash for clunkers, subsidies for companies, etc..... and I'm not even talking about addressing "entitlements" like SS, medicare, medicaide, welfare, etc...

[jazyd]

I get tired of hearing the ad where those working but making less money can get this 'earned income tax credit' and it amounts to over $5000, basically telling them here is more free money.

[CitizenBBN]

I'd get rid of the entire program. Even if you like it, it's a luxury. it's like someone up to their eyeballs in debt saying "well HBO is only $8 a month, that's not enough to really help." That's the thinking that gets you up to your eyeballs in debt.

Have you noticed your street signs changing their look, maybe a bit bigger or "PVT" on those for private neighborhoods? It's a federal law passed about 10 years ago or so standardizing street signs.

Congress is now telling every government entity in the nation how to do street signs. Are you kidding? We have money to even pay the staff to deal with that nonsense? OK it won't cost $5 billion over 3 years, that's not the point.

Let me cut about 1,000 of these things and I bet I can save some money. That would only leave 99,000 to go.

[Doc]

I'd get rid of the entire program. Even if you like it, it's a luxury. it's like someone up to their eyeballs in debt saying "well HBO is only $8 a month, that's not enough to really help." That's the thinking that gets you up to your eyeballs in debt.

Have you noticed your street signs changing their look, maybe a bit bigger or "PVT" on those for private neighborhoods? It's a federal law passed about 10 years ago or so standardizing street signs.

Congress is now telling every government entity in the nation how to do street signs. Are you kidding? We have money to even pay the staff to deal with that nonsense? OK it won't cost $5 billion over 3 years, that's not the point.

Let me cut about 1,000 of these things and I bet I can save some money. That would only leave 99,000 to go.

Exactly. Might only be a "small amount" but lots of "small amounts" equals a large amount. Its like when Romney was attacked for wanting to get rid of big bird (which isn't what he was doing, only the government funding of PBS, but thats another story). It was "only" 430 million dollars which in the big picture, by itself, isn't diddly squat however $430,000,000 is still $430,000,000. Do that several times and it adds up.

[jazyd]

If I remember correctly lots of state were mad about that because of what it costs states anc cities to change all those over. I wonder what lobbyist got a bucket of money for that one.

I'd get rid of the entire program. Even if you like it, it's a luxury. it's like someone up to their eyeballs in debt saying "well HBO is only $8 a month, that's not enough to really help." That's the thinking that gets you up to your eyeballs in debt.

Have you noticed your street signs changing their look, maybe a bit bigger or "PVT" on those for private neighborhoods? It's a federal law passed about 10 years ago or so standardizing street signs.

Congress is now telling every government entity in the nation how to do street signs. Are you kidding? We have money to even pay the staff to deal with that nonsense? OK it won't cost $5 billion over 3 years, that's not the point.

Let me cut about 1,000 of these things and I bet I can save some money. That would only leave 99,000 to go.

[CitizenBBN]

Doc, PBS getting funding is an outrage b/c the people who own the rights to those characters are making 10s of millions a year and we're paying to keep the stations on the air. Huh? the creator of Elmo made $40 million one year. The licensing money pours in but none of it is going back into PBS. You can easily get enough to replace the federal funding or at least substantially reduce it by having those very profitable shows pony up.