But in aiming his budgetary double barrel at this particular 249cm tall bright yellow canary, Mr Trump the big-game hunter may be about to bite off more than he can chew.

The president's proposed 2018 budget, which was released late last week, drew a red line through funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the non-profit engine which drives America's public broadcasting.

Though much slimmer in real terms than either the ABC or the BBC, America's PBS is the home of a number of notable and iconic programs, not least of which is Sesame Street.

The cuts - worth about $US485 million ($630 million) - would also affect the National Public Radio (NPR) service.

Astonishingly, the argument used by the White House to justify the cuts was whether it was fair to "ask a coal miner in West Virginia or a single mom in Detroit" to fund PBS?

Using the same logic, it might well be worth asking whether it's fair to ask anyone to pay for the president's many golfing weekends at Mar-a-Lago?

Or the gargantuan security bill required to keep Mrs Trump in New York rather than Washington DC?

"We can ask them to pay for defense, and we will, but we can't ask them to continue to pay for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting," White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said.

So it looks like golf is on the list too. And Mrs Trump. But early childhood education? That's a government handout too far.

Mercifully, Sesame Street is not wholly funded by PBS; in 2015 an agreement was struck with HBO which puts cable money into the series in exchange for giving HBO a nine month exclusive window on the show.

So rather than killing Big Bird immediately, it merely relegates him and other cultural icons like Grover, Kermit, Cookie Monster and Prairie Dawn to the endangered species list.

But key figures in America's public broadcasting sector have already indicated that a half-billion dollar haircut would seriously devastate its ability to deliver content - free of charge - to its audience.

Though their last official communique was publicly documented and did not end on a particularly friendly note, Mr Trump would do well to ask Australia's prime minister Malcolm Turnbull for advice.

Back in 2014, when Mr Turnbull was communications minister, proposed cuts to Australia's ABC put a target on the rosy pink behind of the children's television golden goose Peppa Pig.

Facing cuts to his budget, the then managing director of the ABC, Mark Scott, issued a dire warning that the national broadcaster could not confirm Peppa's long-term future.

The resulting feather-ruffling in the nation's living rooms confirmed that while politicians might be able to fiddle while pensions burn, if you threaten kid's TV you're asking for seriously trouble.

"Contrary to media rumours, Peppa's is one snout we are happy to have in the ABC trough," Mr Turnbull said, calming the flames.