When given the chance, citizens of Virginia decided not to give their state government more tax dollars even as the state faced budget shortfalls.

RICHMOND — State lawmakers can rule out Virginian's offering up more of their hard-earned money to fix the $1.4 billion budget shortfall Gov. Tim Kaine announced this week.

At least that is what a peek at the so-called "Tax Me More Fund" suggests.

Since its inception in 2002, the fund has collected a total of $10,217.04.

The moral of the story? Perhaps it is that while significant portions of any given state population here in America seems to support expanding government to include all sorts of new laws, regulations and services very few actually intend that expansion of government to be paid for out of their pockets.

The people want Social Security, free prescription drugs and universal health care. But the people don't necessarily want the exorbitant taxes and intrusive government regulations that go with them.

Which is probably why we hear so many proposals to fund such expansions of government with new taxes on the relatively small "rich" demographics who don't have the voting numbers to fight back and aren't exactly able to garner a lot of sympathy for their plight.