CAGW Names Senator Harry Reid Porker of the Month

Had He But World Enough, and Time … He Would Spend All of Our Money

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) bestowed upon Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) the March “Porker of the Month” Award for his absurd belief that a federally-funded Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko, Nevada (pop. 17,000) constitutes essential government spending. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which allots a small part of its $146 million budget to the festival, was defunded under H.R. 1, the Full-Year Continuing Resolution for fiscal year 2011, which Sen. Reid helped defeat in the Senate. On March 8, 2011, he described the proposed termination in a Senate floor speech 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.”

“the tens of thousands of people who come there every year, would not exist.”

One day after Sen. Reid made his preposterous statement, Western Folklife Center Executive Director Charlie Seemann commented that the NEH funds just seven percent of the festival, and that he and his fellow cowboys “could certainly continue if we lose that funding.” That’s the individual, entrepreneurial spirit that has made America great, and it contrasts sharply with the attitude of Sen. Reid, who believes that taxpayers should pay for everything, even if a program can and should stand on its own.

In tribute to Sen. Reid and the Cowboy Poetry Festival, CAGW has decided to try its hand at a bit of verse. As Robert Frost wrote, “a poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong.” So we begin.

Dollar’s Inferno

Midway upon the journey of his life,
Reid found himself in Washington, D.C.
Once there he gathered money from us all,
Convinced the world would call it charity.

Kubla Con

In Carson Mr. Reid began
To guzzle from the public trough;
Engorged with pork, each term he ran
With gifts to Special Interest Man,
Which ticked the taxpayers off.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.