
Anti-Tax Fervor Closed Their Libraries. Now Residents Are Trying to Go It Alone - pm24601
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/us/oregon-library-taxes.html
======
dgzl
> until voters turned down a tax increase that would have kept the library
> system open

Is anyone else wondering why a tax increase is needed to keep the library
open? Does that mean it wasn't sustainable? Could it be due to rising minimum
wage? Is it reasonable to blame the voters?

I grew up on generational property in rural southern Oregon, and it's true
that there's plenty of anti-tax sentiment, including from Myself.

A small town near where I grew up ceased it's police force, and is instead
patrolled by county sheriffs stationed in nearby towns. The truth is there are
many people out here who just want to live their private country lives, many
of who have small income, and spend their year fishing and hunting for food.

~~~
jacobolus
City dwellers dramatically subsidize American suburbs and rural areas. Roads,
water, the electric grid, communication networks, hospitals, fire suppression,
law enforcement, courts, schools, mail delivery, .... public infrastructure
and services get more expensive per capita when people are more spread out. On
top of that, the federal government intentionally spends large amounts of
money in poorer areas of the country (e.g. on military bases and weapons
contractors) as an explicit geographical wealth redistribution scheme. 80
years ago the rural poverty in many parts of America was a story of shocking
destitution.

If people want to reduce the tax burden on folks with low incomes just
scraping by, the way to accomplish that is by increasing taxes on corporate
profits, very large incomes, large inheritances, etc., expand enforcement
against tax evasion, and eliminate legal or quasi-legal tax-avoidance
loopholes. However, the wealthy in this country have largely succeeded in a
50-year campaign to redistribute wealth upward.

~~~
black6
> If people want to reduce the tax burden on folks with low incomes just
> scraping by, the way to accomplish that is by increasing taxes on corporate
> profits, very large incomes, large inheritances, etc. However, the wealthy
> in this country have largely succeeded in a 50-year campaign to redistribute
> wealth upward.

It's an unpopular opinion (because of the propaganda campaigns waged by the
wealthy), but a wealth tax is very much needed in this country. The income tax
is fundamentally designed to _prevent_ the accumulation of wealth. So us
worker bees bear the costs of financing government, while the wealthy, who
owing to their accumulated wealth, do not need or have an income, get to reap
the benefits.

~~~
ams6110
The wealthy pay the vast majority of all the income tax already.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-14/top-3-of-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-14/top-3-of-
u-s-taxpayers-paid-majority-of-income-taxes-in-2016)

~~~
hedvig
I don't get why this is always trotted out? If you have the lion's share of
wealth (and the continuous compounding passive income that comes with) then
this should be expected. And then its just a matter of negotiating the amount,
with the society you participate in.

~~~
kodablah
>>> a wealth tax is very much needed

>> The wealthy pay the vast majority [...] already

> I don't get why this is always trotted out?

Surely the context of the conversation explains why.

------
40acres
Governments in general do a terrible job at PR. I remember a "controversy"
during the Obama administration which was caused by the phrase "you didn't
build that" which was basically him trying to promote the stability and
infrastructure that the government provides for innovation and
entrepreneurship.

For a rich nation like the US there's a lot we need to be thankful to our
government for. The fact that I can hop on a cross country flight and have no
worries at all about clashing with another plane is a testament to the FAA.
Organizations like the NIH provide valuable research for drug development.
DARPA help to fund the internet!

The government deserves loads of criticism but at the same time our views of
it are so cynical it leads to situations like this.

~~~
pstuart
Your example is dangerous territory for political discussion here. The Obama
example cited was _intentionally_ misquoted (by providing a snippet without
the full context) to make him bad.

Government PR to a certain degree is a good thing to promote support and
appreciation for programs, but it can get into dangerous territory when
wielded with the intent to deceive (as we're now seeing).

~~~
Buttons840
I've wondered if this is part of why politicians are so long winded and won't
directly answer questions. Not just so they can appear neutral and avoid
answering hard questions, but if they actually say something meaningful in a
few words it will probably be taken out of context and used against them.

------
andyv
There is a wonderful documentary "Flint Town" (currently on NetFlix) that
follows the police department of Flint, MI, a town that is struggling. At one
point, officers end up campaigning for a local ballot issue to renew a tax
that supposedly supports them, but in reality doesn't. There is a vague
promise that they will see the money if the measure is renewed.

After passage, the scene where the Flint city council ultimately screws over
the chief of police is appalling. Municipal politics can be brutal too.

~~~
clintonb
> Municipal politics can be brutal too.

Municipal politics are the _most_ brutal. I've seen fistfights at school board
meetings! National politics get a lot of attention, but local is where
citizens are directly affected.

~~~
MaysonL
See K. C. Constantine's Rocksburg series of murder mysteries. They're set in a
small city in the western Rust Belt of Pennsylvania, featuring a police chief
who has many runins with the rest of the municapal government.

Then again, my kid brother, a liberal Democrat, spent 20 years in his local
government in the most Republican congressional district in New Jersey,
serving on the planning commission(20 years), the school board(13 years), and
a regional board of education. So cats and dogs can occasionally co-exist
peacefully.

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tareqak
I know that my suggestion sounds like a knee-jerk reaction, but I wish that
each and every public service had one or more prominently-displayed large
signs on their premises saying how much their expenses were and where the
money came from to pay for it. My reasoning? It's easy to tunnel-vision on
your own financial situation when you are sufficiently ignorant of what
services your taxes are paying for.

~~~
howard941
It surprised the hell out of me as it will you but ignorance of how much it
cost and where the money goes wasn't an issue here. These Douglas county
voters mailed in their rejection of a dedicated library tax.

Most everywhere else in the country your suggestion makes sense. In my county
library funds are bundled in the county general ad valorem property tax.

~~~
burfog
How it works:

Government officials want more money for random nonsense and corruption.
Voters disapprove. Government officials pick something to hold hostage, such
as the library. They propose a special library tax. Meanwhile, the random
nonsense and corruption is getting funded.

The voters aren't that dumb. They know the library could be funded, and they
don't wish to fund random nonsense and corruption.

It's a threat, "Give more money or we'll cut something you like!", when the
voters can plainly see that funds are going to things that are improper.

Suppose the voters fund the library. Next year, when that funding gets
diverted, the government will come asking for more. Maybe it will be a
different thing needlessly on the chopping block.

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munchbunny
This is a great lesson in how we tend not to notice the effect of these
services paid for with our tax dollars... until they're missing.

~~~
jimmaswell
Libraries served a very important purpose, but nowadays with the proliferation
of computers/smartphones and all literary classics, scientific information,
etc. being freely available online, physical libraries feel like less of a
necessity. They can serve as hubs for other community activities, but those
can just as easily be held elsewhere. Only real use I've had for one in the
past years is the odd time I had to print or fax something. Maybe libraries
should eventually be downsized to simple community cybercafes with links on
the desktop to some of these resources and a printer/fax machine.

~~~
nck4222
Ah, the old "I've don't need the service therefore no one does" argument.

It's obvious you don't use libraries, because you left out a couple dozen
other services they provide that are not easily replaced. I'm also not sure
how a community center is supposed to be easily replaced without tax revenue.

While the "libraries are outdated" line is oft-repeated, it's still
inaccurate. Libraries provide large economic impacts, on top of less easy to
measure things like being community centers. Here's one article about a study
that shows for every $1 in tax put towards a library, it generates anywhere
from $2.50-$5.00+ in economic benefit, depending on how you measure it:
[https://www.toledoblade.com/local/2016/04/28/Toledo-Lucas-
Co...](https://www.toledoblade.com/local/2016/04/28/Toledo-Lucas-County-
Public-Library-gives-2-74-value-per-tax-dollar.html?abnpageversion=evoke)

If you google for more, you'll find a dozen other examples.

~~~
dantheman
All of those things could perhaps done even better if they weren't pretending
books was still their main service.

Perhaps an office in city hall could have computer 24/7 or other things.

I like libraries - but they shouldn't be welfare/job centers -- we should
build institutions that specialize in that and can be evaluated on their
effectiveness.

~~~
dlp211
This is an example of perfect being the enemy of good.

------
gottebp
These things are never so cut and dry. Politicians know to cut funding from
the most visible places first -- parks, police, roads, fire, schools, etc. It
allows them to justify raising taxes. Then they turn and put the new revenue
towards something else entirely. Finally the whole cycle repeats decade after
decade, until [sales tax + property tax + fed income tax + social security
(12% counting employer contribution) + state income tax + vehicle
registration] is over 50%. Without trust earned through good action over time,
good citizens are trapped with nothing left but to pull the plug.

~~~
dv_dt
Perhaps there exist socially and economically positive things which taxes can
fund more beneficially than individual spending for equivalent services.

~~~
gottebp
Perhaps you misunderstand. I am not opposed to taxes that support the common
good. Simply pointing out why it is hard to distinguish between reasonable
taxation and excessive taxation made necessary by irresponsible use of
revenue.

~~~
dv_dt
In your story cycle, there is this sort of promotion of learned helplessness
of the citizen which can only end in pulling the plug. Perhaps I mistook that
focus on the tax aspect instead of the benefit aspect of governing as being
generically anti-governement.

In general if you want more efficient use of money, I think it's better payoff
to focus on the actual uses and how to get to the benefits more efficiently
instead of concentrating on reducing costs. I feel that's true for businesses
as well as governments.

------
klodolph
Used to live in Oregon... it's hard to really pin the blame on anyone, here.
Politicians are voted in and out of office and ballot measures are passed
mostly based on issues with short-term visibility. In the heyday of the timber
industry it was hard to justify more cautious and measured approaches to
growth, and easier to fund projects with bonds based on projections of
property tax growth that turned out to be optimistic.

There _is_ a bit of an anti-tax fervor in Oregon, I wouldn't claim that it's
unique or special compared to other parts of the country but it exists. Oregon
passed a "kicker" which makes it so any state revenue surplus gets refunded to
the taxpayers. This makes it basically impossible for the state to save any
tax revenue surplus, so budget shortfalls can mean immediate reductions in
service and infrastructure projects are paid for with future obligations. This
is really nothing more than leverage (and extra risk exposure) on a state
scale... when the economy does well you get money back from the state, when
the economy does poorly you get service cuts. It's easy to see both sides of
this issue... it's easy to see why it got passed (I overpaid taxes, so give me
the money back!) and it's easy to see why it's a bad idea.

This is an unintended side effect of the way the political process works in
Oregon. The ballot initiatives in Oregon (called the "Oregon system" even
though South Dakota did it first) were a big force for progress in the early
20th century (e.g. women's suffrage in 1912) but ballot initiatives seem to
really suck at making any kind of coherent or sensible fiscal policy. And that
leads to today, with rural Oregon paying the price for decades of mediocre
fiscal policy, once propped up on timber profits but not anymore.

I'm really glad we have the initiative system but I'm also glad it's limited
in scope and power. I can vote on whether marijuana should be legal but I
can't vote to change the Fed's target rate.

~~~
sievebrain
You see the same in most governments though. A surplus is rarely banked.
Instead a budget surplus is immediately spent on structural spending like
increased wages. A ballot measure to force the government to give back budget
surplus is a smart move - the borrowing and service cuts give people a direct
linkage to how their economy is doing.

Look at Germany. Huge budget surplus last year which is now predicted to be
spent entirely on helping migrants who turned up after Merkel invited them in.
Would the Germans have liked the money back? Most likely! Were they ever going
to be given that option when politicians had the option of feeling good about
themselves through additional spending? No way!

------
tick_tock_tick
Most governments and municipalities do a horrible job of articulating what
their constituents taxes go towards. People see giant buckets and have a very
hard time converting that into what they see and use day to day.

~~~
tyingq
It might be deliberate. Taxpayers would see how things like badly managed
and/or lavish pensions eat up large parts of the budget.

~~~
jonathankoren
There’s certainly a popular belief that government is mismanaged, but I’m not
entirely sure it is, or at least is to the extent and in the areas that anti-
tax advocates believe.

Of course make government more effective and efficient. Very few would argue
against that. But at some point, there’s just nothing to trim. However if
one’s underlying assumption is all public spending is bad, then of course
there’s more to cut, it’s just that the argument to justify the cut is
disingenuous.

~~~
tyingq
The higher-level point was just that more detail will invite more scrutiny. I
can certainly, though, cite examples of large cities with multibillion-dollar
pensions that are close to being insolvent. Dallas is one of them.

------
slededit
As the song goes “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”.

The town tested out life without libraries and saw it was bad for kids. This
got the votes to reopen them. I think sometimes it’s healthy to see if we
“really need it”. Especially when physical books are becoming obsolete.

~~~
kamarg
I don't know about these libraries specifically but all of the libraries by
where I live serve many more purposes than just a warehouse for physical
books. Free internet access, community gardens, 3d printers, audio books, some
even run classes for kids on various topics like personal finance and how to
put together a resume.

~~~
thaumasiotes
To be totally fair, I might get upset over a "library tax" that turned out to
be actually funding community gardens. Those aren't even related ideas.

~~~
kamarg
I haven't used it personally but I'm pretty sure the library with the garden
that's near me actually uses the garden for classes to teach children about
things like how insects pollinate plants and how to grow stuff. I think it's
mostly an educational tool as opposed to a way to feed the neighborhood on the
tax payers' dime.

Maybe community garden is the wrong term for it. I would also be a bit unhappy
if my taxes were paying for a library to feed the neighborhood. There's
other/better ways for the government to give food to people from collected
taxes.

------
poulsbohemian
In my small, rural community, it was evident several years ago that the city
wanted to shut down the library. They had obviously cut back on staff and had
cut back hours.

Likewise, we went through the same with recycling and trash, where there was a
proposal to add $3/mo to the recycling bill to keep weekly service. The city
instead cut back to every-other-week, with the option of paying $30/mo if you
wanted a second bin (because families produce more recycling over a two-week
period than one bin will allow). Once recycling costs increased and it was no
longer a revenue-generator for the city to sell their waste to Chinese
recyclers... guess what, the rates increased anyway.

In short, I've found that small-town services boil down a lot to: 1) Who is
willing to speak up for them.

2) Fervent anti-tax retirees who moved to those small towns thinking their
costs and taxes would be less.

3) Poor, often corrupt governance.

4) A limited tax base to begin with. In many of these rural areas, there might
be at most tens of thousands of residents.

~~~
dgzl
> tens of thousands of residents

I'm thinking tens to thousands of residents.

~~~
poulsbohemian
True - I was being generous, realizing there are counties throughout the west
with a few hundred, and there are others up to say 30,000 (roughly mine).
There are differences, yet similarities across these that stand apart from
say, Multnomah or King county.

------
tomohawk
It's called firemen first. There's usually plenty of waste, especially in the
more opaque and unaccountable areas of government, such as the school system
administrative staff.

So, they get rid of something people will really notice and guess what? Next
time people will say they must have really needed that money.

------
rayiner
> In recent months, some communities voted to pay to reopen or support a town
> library, while others insisted that volunteers alone would suffice.

In other news, voters in a democracy use their franchise to decide priorities
for their community. Elitist Northeastern newspaper writes judgmental article
about it because its editors have different priorities.

------
oiuew83
The central rural parts of Oregon are killing their communities out of
ignorance.

In 2014 Josephine county voted down a tax to keep their jail open.

Another counties entire sheriff's department resigned recently, due to lack of
funding to properly staff the office; they were all burning the candle at both
ends.

There are other examples of this behavior over the last decade that are easily
Googled, so I'll avoid posting it all.

If you talk to these people, or see their commentaries online, many of them
are thinking they'll just make taxes low, and of course someone will build a
factory, in the middle of nowhere, with a poorly informed workforce, and no
social services.

The locals don't want to shoulder the cost of education and security, but of
course some private business owner will.

~~~
magduf
I don't see the problem here, though I am questioning who's providing police
services in that county now.

If people want to vote to refuse to fund having a police service, how is that
wrong? If they want to go without, that's their choice. Of course, that could
have some pretty nasty consequences, but again, they voted for it, and it's
their choice. I do hope, however, that the state and federal authorities will
keep an eye on things, and if anything bad happens which results in a huge
lawsuit, that the people of that county will be literally forced (even if it
means forcibly seizing all their property) to pay the judgments.

As a very wise Frenchman once wrote, "every nation gets the government it
deserves". The people in these rural counties are getting the government they
deserve.

~~~
cbg0
> If people want to vote to refuse to fund having a police service, how is
> that wrong? If they want to go without, that's their choice.

You can't really let people have a say with regards to everything they pay
for, because a lot of people have an "I got mine" attitude, so as long as no
house has burned down in their neighborhood lately, they might be tempted to
vote against funding the fire department as well.

If the whole town goes up in a blaze, then will you expect the federal
government to step in and help them? If yes, that means everyone foots the
bill for their stupidity; If not, can we still call ourselves humans?

Some basic services should be funded, and if you don't want that, you should
be able to go live in the woods, or at least that's how I see it.

~~~
sneak
> _You can 't really let people have a say with regards to everything they pay
> for, because a lot of people have an "I got mine" attitude, so as long as no
> house has burned down in their neighborhood lately, they might be tempted to
> vote against funding the fire department as well._

While I despise your position, I admire your honesty about the fact that these
policies are paternalistic and violate consent.

What makes you the person who gets to decide for them what they should or
shouldn’t spend their money on?

~~~
cbg0
> these policies are paternalistic and violate consent.

Like I said, if you don't like living in a society where the rules aren't to
your liking, you can go live by yourself in the woods where there's no one to
violate your consent.

~~~
magduf
What if the majority of voters in that society vote for "I got mine" policies?
That's what we're arguing here; this isn't a situation about a handful of
malcontents.

------
alexanderwept
Anti-tax fervor seems like a scapegoat. The library wasn't producing enough
value for the residents to care about continuing it and I don't blame them.
This is how a democratic government is supposed to work - eventually things
will converge to the median view.

I've been voting against my libraries for as long as I've been able to vote.
They're just not super valuable to me - they're not keeping kids out of
trouble, in fact, it seems like kids go to the library to get into trouble -
junkies routinely overdose in them.

In the past 3 years, I've purchased at least 70 books. Each time I purchased a
book, I checked to see whether I could get it from the library and they didn't
have it. My county library system has 2,038 books of and about feminism and
~300 books of and about LGBT issues, but it has scarcely anything about
conservative / right wing political philosophy or Abrahamic theology. It
doesn't have a single book by Machiavelli, Hobbes, Evola, or Carl Schmitt. The
library doesn't seem like a service that's open to everyone, it seems like a
subsidiary for a specific viewpoint and agenda.

~~~
IOT_Apprentice
Sigh. I'm not quite sure how to respond to this, it comes across as selfish
and staying in your ideological bubble. Libraries exist to serve a community.
Young children aren't junkies and your assertion seems specious. Libraries
aren't crack houses or heroin dens and using that as a reason to not support
them is, well, far fetched.

You can ask libraries to get books you are interested in. Further you can
request the books you want via the ILL (Inter Library Loan) System from around
the country or the world. You get the value out of the library that you put
into it.

~~~
mlrtime
People should be voting selfishly, who else is going to look out for your self
interest? If most people do NOT think like him, then the library will stay. If
most people do not want it , why keep it?

~~~
CydeWeys
You can't run a government like this. Most people don't use most government
services, yet the smaller number who do use them really benefit greatly from
them. If we voted down all government services that <50% of people use then
society ends up suffering greatly. Hell, most people don't even use
firefighters; should we vote them down too?

~~~
alexanderwept
No one is saying that we should vote down all services that aren't used by
<50% of the population. My only point is that decisions are democratically
valid if they're ratified by the majority.

The majority of people deciding to have libraries is just as democratically
legitimate as the majority deciding not the have libraries.

------
pteredactyl
Classic diversionary administrative state clickbait headline: "More taxes,
because libraries!"

How about why are our taxes not spent on libraries? What are they being spent
on? The people who talk to the people who fill out the forms for the people
who are supposed to be managing our libraries? Or was it that our libraries
were actually sold by the people elected to supposedly make sure our libraries
stayed open? Oops that was the US post office...

Total government revenue was $6,300,000,000,000 last year[1]

[1]
[https://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_2018USrt_20rs1n](https://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_2018USrt_20rs1n)

