He doesn't want to drown him in a bath tub, but Mitt Romney said Wednesday that if he's elected president, Big Bird will have to sing for his seed.

"We're not going to kill Big Bird, but Big Bird is going to have advertisements," Romney said, while speaking at Homer's Deli in Clinton, Iowa.

Like virtually every other conservative candidate, Romney has had it — had it! — with government expenditures like public broadcasting, and he wants to save taxpayers money by cutting federal funding to programs like PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts.

On the campaign trail Wednesday in Iowa, Romney declared that if he is elected president, PBS and the NEA will lose federal funding.

Instead, the man from the private sector will turn to — where else? — the private sector to support them.

Also Read: Jon Stewart on Romney's $10K Bet: 'A Mormon Gambling With an Evangelical Over Who's the Bigger Liar' (Video)

So what's Romney's test for which programs warrant federal support.

"Is a program so critical that it's worth borrowing from China to pay for it?"