[Galsteinbok]

There once was a Senator named Harry
His views and policies were so scary
He wants to tax ordinary working folks
To pay for poetically gifted cowpokes
For this, all taxpayers should be wary

Yes, I made that up myself. Took about 2 minutes. You're welcome. I'm here all week. Try the prime rib!

Next January, be sure to take in the Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko, Nevada...because you're paying for it anyway.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennt...boy_poets.html

Reid: Save federal funding for the cowboy poets!

March 08, 2011

Save federal funding for the cowboy poets!

File this under: Did Harry Reid just say that?

In the middle of his tirade against House Republicans' "mean-spirited" budget bill on the Senate floor Tuesday, the Senate Majority Leader lamented that the GOP’s proposed budget cuts would eliminate the annual "cowboy poetry festival” in his home state of Nevada. (See also: Reid’s prostitution lecture bombs.)

Reid clearly has a soft spot for the Baxter Blacks of the poetry world and thinks Republicans don't.

“The mean-spirited bill, H.R. 1 … eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts,” said Reid. “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.”

Reid was attempting, of course, to criticize the spending proposal crafted by House Republicans that would cut $61 billion from the budget before he began praising the annual festival in his home state. The Senate majority leader also insisted Tuesday that he would do everything he could to schedule an up-or-down vote on H.R. 1 in order to force his GOP colleagues to take a position on the budget bill that Democrats argue includes "draconian" cuts.

For the record, the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering is in Elko, Nev., next January. The 28th annual festival, a “week-long celebration of life in the rural West, featuring the contemporary and traditional arts of western ranching culture,” is expected to draw thousands of people, according to the festival’s website.