Cowboy Poetry?

Due to the high gas prices, my friend recently had to lay off four of his employees. He runs a paving business and his business really started to pick up when the weather broke. But he was paying over a thousand dollars per week to fill up his trucks. That's just insane. And it goes up by hundreds every week. Anyway, he felt bad for having to do it, of course. I mean, if actually caring about someone's job straightened out financial situations, then we'd never be in crisis. But it was either lay off his employees or lose money. That's unfortunately how things have to work. With government, however, the emotions always decide the outcome. Oh, we don't want people losing jobs (that the government somehow created when it really has no business doing so), so we'll keep spending money, going into deeper debt, and we'll deal with the consequences. And like everyone knows, of course, government would have long been out of business if it was a private enterprise. My friend can't invent money from nothing to keep people on. He can't eat the debt and lose his entire livelihood to save someone's job. But government does. We can't take money from every working taxpayer to funnel into programs. Government does. We'd be in prison for such nonsense. I say the solution is rather simple: decrease the size of government by about 70%, get off of private business' back and stop--this goes for state and federal--punishing businesses and driving them out, clean up the fraud and mismanagement, streamline the entire process minus the redundant redundancies, get a handle on the oil situation by tappning America's resources, decrease our presence on a world stage as far as conflict goes, and then you will have ample money to spend on these types of programs. Currently, these violin-playing politicians do not even attempt to address the inept way government is operated. They want to double-down on stupid until the whole thing goes beyond SNAFU. Bring it under control to where spending isn't so much of a problem, then you can spend. Jeebus H. You'd think I was speaking to little kids or something. These are supposedly educated adults! Some scream to steal money from "rich" people just so government can not only keep going like it's going, but actually spend more.

well, according to this, http://www.redstate.com/vladimir/2011/03/08/reid-nea-saving-lives-via-cowboy-poetry/ Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.” wow I didnt realize that tens of thousands of people wouldnt exist with out cowboy poetry How in the hell does this man keep getting re elected?

If 10,000 people attend this event it must be good. I have a great idea why not charge each person $10.00 to get in to the show. In rural Wisconsin this would be a deal. This would give the sponsoring group $100,000.00 in admissions. With the proper marketing of related merchandise they could bring in another $200 to $300 thousand dollars. By doing this there would not be a need for government funding. If they can't generate enough money to keep the program going then maybe it is not worth having.

Cowboy Poetry! Sounds like something George W. Bush (and Chenney probably) may have started! Hope Chenney is not still out there looking to pepper a human deer!

The funny part here is, it's probably the first time Harry Reid has backed something that is actually Constitutional! lol

Just another example of Harry Reid making a totally ridiculous argument and sounding senile. I don't have anything against Cowboy Poetry or any artistic or cultural endeavor, but how much we can afford in times when there is a budget crunch is an important consideration. The exhibit that scandalized and enraged many - the one with ants crawling over the figure of Jesus as well as some sexually graphic material - was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, our tax dollars. I think that we have to consider that these grants don't fund just some rhyming cowboys but a lot of shock artists with little talent and a lot of nerve. It has to be nerve to call some of that stuff "art". There is no dollar being spent that isn't sacred to someone, but if we never make any choices then we have no choice but to fund everyone and everything in perpetuity and soon there won't be an America and her cowboys will be nothing but history.