The variety of things your government does is nearly endless. Here’s an announcement by the Institute of Museum and Library Services in the National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities that they will be studying the impact of free access to computers and the Internet at public libraries. (Yes, there’s an Institute of Museum and Library Services. You’re paying for it.)

Want me to tell you what the impact of free Internet access in libraries is? Some people who otherwise couldn’t can get online for free. Some people who could pay for Internet access don’t because they can get it for free at the library. And some of the people using the Internet at the library look at porn and stuff, which is pretty creepy. There’s your study!

But maybe there’s more to it. Should your tax dollars go to the Institute of Museum and Library Services in the National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities so it can conduct this study?

It’s funded through the Interior Appropriations bill. Alas, neither the House nor the Senate has even introduced an Interior Approps bill. They should have – the new fiscal year starts October 1st, just a few weeks after Congress returns from its August recess.

(Here’s last year’s House and Senate bills – costing about $225 per U.S. family – which were rolled into the big ol’ Consolidated Appropriations Act ($9,400/U.S. family). Congress passed it in late December, 2007 – almost three months into the current fiscal year.)