Congratulations, Ben Shapiro, you just cut 0.0 percent of the federal budget

Conservative columnist Ben Shapiro thinks it's easy to cut government spending:

We know that it isn't tough to cut spending. 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.”

The Smithsonian does not use government money to fund exhibitions. The exhibit in question was funded by private-sector contributions. And even if it had been funded with government money, its total cost -- $750,000 -- would represent about 0.00002 percent of the federal budget. But, again, the exhibit wasn't funded by the government, which means that in arguing that it's easy to cut spending, Ben Shapiro successfully identified an exhibit that constitutes exactly 0.0 percent of the federal budget. With sharp minds like Shapiro's at work, the deficit will be gone in no time!

(In fairness to Shapiro, he does identify one other supposedly easy way to reduce the budget, complaining that the $1.25 billion in funding for “black farmers who were supposedly discriminated against by the Department of Agriculture” was an unnecessary “racial payoff by liberals to a key constituency.” But, in fairness to reality, that's dumb. See, that $1.25 billion was the result of the settlement of a lawsuit, so it wasn't entirely optional. And noted conservatives like Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley pushed for it. And even if it was entirely unnecessary, it constitutes about 0.04 percent of the federal budget.)