1 Million Dollars: Pennywise Pound Poor Deficit Reduction Ideas

 Remember this scene from the Austin Powers movie?

A parity of our political leaders discussion of budget cuts and tackling the deficit? This especially reminds me of the political posturing we get from the right and the left (like in a recent NYT article) discussing cuts to farm subsidies. Cutting the entire farm program budget amounts to less than 1/2 of 1 % of total government spending. Given the problems with medicare and social security, it seems like it costs us more to simply discuss farm subsidies than what we will ever end up saving through cuts. Some groups like the EWG have spent a lot of resources tracking farm subsidy data. Why? I guarantee it is not a fiscally minded agenda. They are more concerned with politically correct agriculture than sustainable farms or government, and I guarantee if subsidies were redirected to organic and local backyard production, the EWG data base would probably go away while the deficit grows and the check is in the mail for wealthy special interests.