If not this, then what?

Reader comment on: U.S. Institute of Peace

Submitted by Andrew Terhune (United States), Sep 6, 2017 17:39

Is there any line item in the national budget that we can cut? Apparently not. As this illustrates, even something as insignificant as the USIFP has a constituency. We can't defund PBS because we're accused of murdering Big Bird. We subsidize mohair production even though it hasn't been listed as a strategic necessity since 1960. It's not the amounts as much as the principle. As long as we spend for mohair and Big Bird, every other rent seeker has a boulder to hid behind when its subsidy is threatened, hence none ever are.

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