ND Senate Votes Unanimously To Re-Authorize Subsidies For Basket Weaving, Easter Egg Painting

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A year ago I wrote about an email a reader sent me from the North Dakota Council on the Arts offering subsidies for people doing things like basket weaving and Easter egg decorations. I was, frankly, a little surprised that such activities were being subsidized by the taxpayers in this state, but apparently you can get a few thousand bucks if you apply.

In addition to getting over $300,000 from President Obama’s “stimulus” program, the NDCA received $1,363,602 in funding for the current biennium. Today the North Dakota Senate approved unanimously HB2010 (introduced at the request of Governor Jack Dalrymple) which gives the agency an 11% funding increase to $1,514,144.

The surprise isn’t so much that the bill passed, but that not one legislator in the Senate chamber saw fit to object to taxpayer subsidies for basket weaving and other such nonsense. Here’s video of the bill passing unanimously with only state Senator Tim Mathern giving a floor statement in favor of it: