LeVar Burton, former host of the Public Broadcasting Service program “Reading Rainbow” has said that he is “outraged” at Mitt Romney’s threat to pull funding from PBS in Wednesday night’s presidential debate, according to TMZ.

“I am personally outraged that any serious contender for the White House would target as part of his campaign the children of America in this fashion,” said the actor, who appeared in the TV movie based on Alex Haley’s book Roots, and played the beloved character Geordi La Forge on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

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“Educators across the country, as well as millions of children and adults know that the programming on PBS has been responsible for significant improvements in education, literacy, math, science and life skills for generations of our children,” he said.

During Wednesday night’s debate, in a discussion about lowering the deficit, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) told moderator Jim Lehrer, “I’m sorry Jim. I’m gonna stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m gonna stop other things,” Romney said. “I like PBS, I like Big Bird, I actually like you too.”

Federal subsidies for public broadcast make up just .037 percent of the country’s $1.2 trillion deficit.