What’s the Cowboy Poetry Festival? As Townhall.com’s Guy Benson learned from Senator Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), it’s a federally funded event without which the “tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.” Senator Reid made these remarks on the floor of the Senate while opposing the cuts to the National Endowment of the Humanities and National Endowment of the Arts. To his credit, the Senator did not bring props as Rep. Jeff Markey (D-MA) did when he invited a giant Arthur the Aardvark to a Capitol Hill press conference.

But while these remarks are amusing, they simply illustrate the larger problem—there are far too many legislators in Washington so wedded to big government that they will go to ridiculous extremes to avoid making even the tiniest of cuts. As The Congressional Budget Office announced yesterdayFebruary marked the biggest monthly deficit in history—a whopping $223 billion. And Senator Reid is balking over $22 million in cuts to the NEH?

We are at a crucial crossroads in our country’s history. This is why Heritage has identified major spending cuts, urgent reforms, and a host of other solutions. We need serious leadership that will tackle the problems we face, not duck the hard choices.