Porker for April

No foolin'
From the press release
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has named Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Porker of the Month for his absurd belief that a federally-funded Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko, Nevada (pop. 17,000) constitutes essential government spending.

The festival receives a portion of its budget from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), whose $146 million budget was defunded under H.R. 1, the Full-Year Continuing Resolution (funding act) for fiscal year 2011, that Sen. Reid helped defeat in the Senate.

During a floor speech in the Senate on March 8, 2011, Sen. Reid described the proposed termination as “mean-spirited,” stating that were it not for NEH’s federal money, the Cowboy Poetry Festival and “the tens of thousands of people who come there every year, would not exist.”

In response, Western Folklife Center Executive Director Charlie Seemann commented that NEH funds just 7 percent of the festival and that he and his fellow cowboys “could certainly continue if we lose that funding.”

For undervaluing the individual, entrepreneurial spirit that makes America great and believing that federal taxpayers should pay for everything, even those programs that can stand on their own, CAGW names Senate Majority Leader Reid the March Porker of the Month.