You can't shame the Texas Lege either....

"Crowdfunding" sounds so much nicer than "running government like a charity":

A bill that would crowdfund money from Texans to deal with a state backlog of thousands of untested rape kits tentatively passed the Texas House Wednesday on a voice vote.

"Today we have an opportunity to bring justice to women, to victims, to survivors of sexual assault," said state Rep. Victoria Neave, regarding House Bill 1729, which was the freshman representative's first to reach the House floor.

The legislation would give those applying or renewing their driver’s license an option to donate $1 or more toward rape kit testing. 

I'm envisioning cardboard standees on the counters at DPS license offices with a sad rape victim's face and the caption "Won't you please help bring my rapist to justice?"

The fundamental function of government is to provide a legal system to provides protection from criminal actions, and part of that protection is due process under law, which includes collecting and preparing evidence of a crime for presentation in a court of law.  And the State of Texas wants to make that fundamental function the nature of a charitable donation.  Honk if you hate rapists!, and please donate $1 so we can make some attempt to bring them to justice, because paying for the basic functions of government is taxation, and that's an evil up with which we will not put!

We still advertise the lottery as funding Veterans and schools, even though it does that through the general fund, not as a dedicated funding source.  And Texas still spends less on school than 2/3rds of the country. 

But if 500 to 2000 people are feeling generous, we might get a rape kit processed this year!