Fund My Face

­Even in the midst of a difficult budget situation of Republican provenance, at least one GOP legislator in a critical committee position has some curious ideas about how taxpayer bucks should be spent.  

According to reports, Senate Appropriations Chair Gary Nodler plans on pressing ahead during the 2009 legislative session with a scheme by which the state would pay to commission painted portraits of Appropriations Committee Chairmen, starting with him, and which would then hang in perpetuity in Senate Committee Room 2 in the state capitol.  Just what Missouri taxpayers have been clamoring for.

The fact that, following Matt Blunt's single term in the governor's mansion, Missouri faces a budget shortfall of more than $300 million is apparently lost on Nodler.  Perhaps he missed the dozens of news stories about the budget crisis while he was playing make-believe and having doormen fling open the senate doors and announce him to an empty chamber?­   

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