Pew Trust Willing to Pony Up $12 Million

Well, that didn't take long.
Apparently the folks at the Pew Charitable Trusts are ready to pony up $12 million as a down payment towards the National Park Centennial Initiative, as long as half of that money goes towards Philadelphia-area parks.
Rebecca Rimel, president of the trusts, and Dirk announced the proposed donation this afternoon at the Franklin Court Underground Museum, which is located on the spot of Benjamin Franklin's home.
Of course, today's announcement kind of jumps the gun, as Congress still has to weigh in on whether it thinks the proposal to annually match $100 million in private donations for the next decade is a good thing. And then there's the other small detail of constructing the legislative mechanism for creating that matching program.
At this point neither of those is a given.