Priorities: Reid Warns "Mean-Spirited" GOP Cuts Could Doom Cowboy Poetry Festival

Guy Benson | March 08, 2011 1:27 PM

Alternate headline - Reid to Cowboy Poets: "I Wish I Knew How to Quit You."

Watch and marvel as the Senate Majority Leader demonstrates exactly how serious Democrats are about curbing federal spending in the midst of a

$14 Trillion (and growing) debt crisis:

“The mean-spirited bill, H.R. 1, eliminates National Public Broadcasting," said Reid in a floor speech. "It eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts. These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.”

Poof! The way Reid tells it, tens of thousands of John Wayne/Walt Whitman enthusiasts would simply fall off the face of the earth if Republicans' mean-spirited demonstrably modest cuts are adopted.

If Democrats are unwilling to abide belt-tightening on federal subsidies for regional cowboy poetry festivals, that tells you everything you need to know about their seriousness on spending. It's as if they believe this didn't actually happen last year. It also does not augur well for the looming entitlements fight

An ol’ cowpoke went ridin’ out one dark and windy day
Upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way
When all at once he spied a posse from the GOP
A-hangin’ from that ol’ mesquite his fed’ral subsidy

His pen was still a-fire and he knew how to spell “git”
But an ol’ paint can’t outride a trillion-dollar deficit
If only Harry Reid can head ’em off at that there pass
‘Cuz he hasn’t finished paying off creative-writing class
Yipp-ki-o yippi-ki-ay
Cow Poets On The Dole
Yipp-ki-o yippi-ki-ay
Cow Poets On The Dole…