Mitt Romney sat down for a lengthy interview with Fortune. In that interview he offered some insight into his position on arts funding. It’s not encouraging.

In order to reach his goal of a 20% GDP cap on spending, he offered the following budgetary cuts: “the Amtrak subsidy, the PBS subsidy, the subsidy for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities.”

This year, the federal government will spend around $2 billion dollars on those programs. Romney’s budgetary goal is a 3.3 trillion dollar spending reduction. With the elimination of those programs, he finds himself with only 3.298 trillion dollars to go.

Down in Virginia, there’s a Federal agency that consumes considerably more dollars than the ones he mentioned. The Pentagon’s base budget is around $500 billion dollars. Its precious wars add another $100 billion dollars.

If Romney eliminated military programs, he’d achieve 18% of his spending goal with a single stroke of the pen. Yet he appears fixated on programs that will get him only 0.0006% closer to the desired goal.

So why is does he want to axe Amtrak, PBS and the NEA? Liberals love those programs and conservatives hate them. In other words: politics as usual.