Let’s face it — Harry Reid’s paean to federal subsidies for cowboy poetry is the easiest bronc in the rodeo for conservatives to ride. Mike Pence gets his eight seconds and more in this interview with Martha McCallum on Fox News this morning.  Pence blasts the funding of public broadcasting as well as “cowboy poetry” in an era of trillion-dollar deficits, and commits the GOP caucus to ending them — especially after one of the main recipients got caught on tape saying that they were unnecessary:

Even if we were running budget surpluses, the federal government still shouldn’t waste taxpayer funds on anachronisms like “public broadcasting” and on non-essentials like funding for the arts.  If Nevadans want to subsidize a cowboy poetry festival, then let them cowboy up and authorize the funding for it.  A cowboy poetry festival in Nevada doesn’t benefit taxpayers in Minnesota or Ohio, just as a lutefisk festival here (perish the thought) wouldn’t benefit Florida or California.  In an era of proliferation in media outlets and vast commercial innovation in the market, the government shouldn’t provide subsidies for one news outlet that competes with all of the rest — and a real news outlet wouldn’t want government funding in the first place.

It’s time put the notion that anything valuable in life deserves federal funding or even qualifies for federal jurisdiction out to pasture.  Let’s hope the cowpokes in the GOP can stay on that bronc to the bell.

Update: Townhall’s Greg Hengler does a little editing to demonstrate how NPR’s public statements match up with its private conversations. Note near the end where Besty Liley, NPR’s director of institutional giving, exclaims “I like it!” when the ersatz activists proclaim that they appreciate NPR’s pro-Palestinian coverage so much they call it “National Palestinian Radio.” Any word on Liley’s status at NPR?

Update II: It was Martha McCallum, not Megyn Kelley.  My apologies for the error.