With regards to paying it,
this site says this about museum funding:
We could use that to make more realistic figures, although the bill talks about things other than simply running the museum (i.e. acquiring artifacts and facilitating trips, etc.).
Anyway, to paying it:
Throwing "fiscal responsibility" out the window seems like a terrible idea, so hopefully we don't do that.
Thinking over the issue, there are basically 4 ways government can pay for something:
-debt (a bad idea!
)
-cutting spending elsewhere (whether this is a good or bad idea depends entirely on what it is being cut--I'm open to suggestions!)
-raising tax revenue (raising taxes on people is bad in and of itself, so it's best to be avoided, although I think there are places where we can cut loopholes and whatnot)
-fees (i.e. toll roads--this is something we could actually apply to this, charging for admission to the museum)
Hopefully that can get someone (possibly me, but clearly I'm not always quick on these things
) to figure it out.