Furthermore, the budget benefits would be miniscule. The CPB’s two-year, $445 million government grant makes up less than 1/100th of a percent of a Federal Budget worth upwards of $3.5 trillion. Think Progress blogger Alyssa Rosenberg details all of the proposed arts funding in Obama’s 2013 budget, including subsidies for the Smithsonian Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts. The total funding is $1.55 billion, still a tiny fraction of overall spending. So despite making a splash on Twitter, Big Bird’s fate won’t have nearly the same impact on government spending.