Topic: CNSNews.com
Ben Shapiro uses his Dec. 2 column, pulished by CNSNews.com, to invoke the manufactured outrage du jour as a way to cut the federal budget:
This week alone, for example, the federally-funded Smithsonian Institution spent cash stocking its National Portrait Gallery with pictures of Ellen DeGeneres clutching her naked bosom, penises, and nude brothers making out—all of this in order to show America how gays and lesbians “struggle for justice ... [attempting to] claim their full inheritance in America’s promise of equality, inclusion and social dignity.”
But the federal government paid nothing to obtain the exhibit -- that cost was borne by private sponsors. The Smithsonian would still spend the same amount of money maintaining an exhibition space no matter what was exhibited there, so banning this particular exhibit saves no money.
Shapiro also suggests that "$1.25 billion in funding for black farmers who were supposedly discriminated against by the Department of Agriculture" could be cut. As Media Matters points out, that money is not an earmark but part of a lawsuit settlement, so paying it isn't optional.
