Missed Point Award: "Will Congress meet the Smithsonian's desperate funding needs?"

I made up the headline in the thread title .....

This is another in my series, The Missed Point Award, for stupid television news reporting.

On the Sunday evening edition of NBC news, they read a story about serious shortfalls in funding the Smithsonian Institutions. Not just the famous jewels on the National Mall, the Smithsonian is a literal chain of museums around the country. All are open free of charge to we, the citizens.

Funding has always been by the government, with annual appropriations to meet operating and maintenance costs, as well as funding research and artifact acquisition. Of late, it has been to the tune of $150M.

Turns out that the infrastructure alone needs nearly $2B in maintenance and repairs, to say nothing of many, many unfunded programs and staff positions.

There is now talk of serious private fund raising (Can anyone else imagine "The Exxon-Mobil Air and Space Museum"?). This link is the only current story I was able to find on the web. While not the NBC story, it is just a few days old and has all the same general facts.

http://www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/19/ap/extras/main3524508.shtml?source=search_story

So ..... at the end of the NBC story - during which I really did not detect any particular bias - they close with the pregnant question, "Will Congress meet the Smithsonian's funding needs?"

While technically true (Smithsonian funding comes from Congress), it is really the wrong question.

The real question, it seems to me, is how do we find the money to pay for such things when the all-consuming War in Iraq™ is bleeding us dry? How do we take care of our national treasures when we can't even take care of our indigent ill?? How do we ensure the physical health of our most precious national artifacts when we can't pay for security in our ports or the proper maintenance of our highway bridges?

This isn't abut Congress being unwilling to fund the Smithsonian. It is, instead, about the purposeful bankrupting of America by the Republicans just so we can have ......

The Exxon-Mobil Air and Space Museum.

I feel sick.

looting the Smithsonian just like the museum in Baghdad was looted?

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0328231


An exhibit on the Alaskan pipeline actually sponsored by Exxon!