Libraries, sí! taxes, no!
The other burning election issue here was a initiative to fund the public libraries with an increase in the city occupational tax. It’s the words “increase” and “tax” that doomed the proposal from the start.
Metro Louisville voters killed the library funding proposal by a 2-1 margin, even though the tax increase of $2 for every $1,000 earned would have added only a pittance to most workers’ tax levies. I guess it’s the principle of the thing.
Louisville spends less money per capita on its libraries than most other cities its size, about $24 a head. Nashville by comparison spends almost twice that. There is a proposal before the Metro council to expand the library system dramatically over the next few years. The main question was, naturally, how to pay for such a worthy cause.
Taxing the citizenry for any project is never a popular idea, so I’m wondering what the council expected in proposing such a numbskull idea when the economy seems to be teetering toward a recession, people are losing their homes, and Fortune 500 companies are laying off workers by the thousands.
Supporters of the tax, which would have cost a person making $40,000 a year a measly $80 over 12 months, spent scads of money — $400,000 by one account — trying to drum up support for the tax hike. Meanwhile, opponents raised a fraction of that to lobby against the tax.
Only in Kentucky can we make molehills into mountains, I’ll tell ya.
Metro Louisville levies an occupational tax of 2.2%. Compared to other communities’ taxes, that’s a minimal rate. The proposal would have raised the rate to 2.4%, enough of an increase to raise about $40 million for the libraries.
They need the money. While our local libraries are pretty good, they need to be updated with new computers and other technologies, they need more books (frankly, their science book selection stinks), and especially they need more branches in currently underserved areas of town.
Sure, it would have cost me more money out of pocket each year if the tax hike had gone through, but it would have been for a good cause. It’s not like it was going to build an arena, or anything.
But I’m an educator, and to me libraries are cool, an investment in the future. I hate paying taxes as much as anyone, but sometimes they are just plain necessary. It’s called spreading the load.
Taxes are bad news, though. Our mayor actually campaigned with the pledge that he would not raise our taxes. Of course, every politician says that every election year, so why do we ever believe them? Taxes still seem to go up, and creating new taxes is an easier way to generate cash than bond issues and — worse yet — rearranging the budget to divert more money to necessary projects.
The voters apparently want the Metro Council to take the road less traveled. I’m unhappy the tax proposal failed, but I can’t say I blame them.
November 8th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
[...] Leigh Anne Palmer wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe other burning election issue here was a initiative to fund the public libraries with an increase in the city occupational tax. It’s the words “increase” and “tax” that doomed the proposal from the start. … [...]