Matt Blunt Inspires Private Donations

Hidden within this story, we find encouraging signs of philanthropy rebounding in the country:

Private donors, including many small-town newspaper publishers, have contributed or pledged nearly $150,000, said Gary Kremer, executive director of the State Historical Society of Missouri.

It's good that historically-minded well-to-do have come together to raise money for a good cause which they find worthy and which they want to support. However, instead of an inspirational story, this piece prefers to bash fiscal responsibility and Governor Blunt:

The fundraising push comes as the society grapples with a 10 percent budget cut in the current fiscal year, coupled with an expected additional 3 percent cut in appropriations.

Those cuts come on the heels of a $55,933 “extraordinary withholding” made by Gov. Matt Blunt in June — the final month of the 2005 fiscal year — meaning the society has seen its budget cut by $173,000 in the past several months.

It is so much easier when you can force the taxpayers to support your pet causes while you spend your disposable income on the frivolities of life, is it not?

It proves, though, that fiscal conservativism doesn't cut the knees out of functions that the government has absorbed through diffusion from private groups; if those groups tasked their raised monies to actually doing things instead of merely lobbying for the state to do things, who knows what they might accomplish?