NEWS ONE – On Thursday night, the former Emmy-winning host and producer of “Reading Rainbow,” Levar Burton (pictured right), blasted GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney for his Big Bird remarks about cutting funding to  non-profit television station PBS.

This week while debating President Barack Obama, Romney said to nonexistent moderator Jim Lehrer, who is also the executive editor of PBS’ “NewsHour,” “I’m sorry Jim, I’m gonna stop the subsidy to PBS. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you too. But I’m not gonna keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it.”

“I couldn’t believe the man actually fixed his mouth to say that. I interpreted it as an attack on children, Soledad…an attack on children who come from a disenfranchised, you know, background.”

To Burton, PBS shows, such as “Sesame Street,” provide lower-income children with access to education and information that they normally wouldn’t have access to:

“Again, [for me it] goes back to the issue of access. Here’s something I would like to point out, Soledad. I know in this current economic climate we have to make different choices; however, I was raised by a woman whose philosophy it was to give her children the best education she could not afford. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

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