Virginia legislators who reportedly are laying out “seven figures” to put state spending online, should have paid attention when Nebraska state treasurer Shane Osborn wrote recently to say he could do it for much less. After all, he’d already done it for Nebraska. But to date the Virginia solons have not taken up the Nebraskan’s offer.

Osborn is a former Navy pilot whose plane crashed in 2001 after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet in international air space. The near-death experience, for which he received the Distinguished Flying Cross, clarified things for him, and when Osborn retired from the Navy he had a new mission: Put the “service” back in public office.