The Tea Party vs. The Public Library | David Morris

David Morris

Director, The Public Good Initiative, Institute for Local Self-Reliance

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The Tea Party vs. The Public Library

Posted: 08/18/2013 6:36 pm

Taxes , Tea Party, Campbell, Campbell Country, Kentucky, Libary Funding, Library, Public Libraries, Pulaski, Politics News

In September 2012 the Library Board of Pulaski County raised property taxes $1 per year for a typical homeowner to maintain the existing level of services in its five libraries. Voters were not given the opportunity to reject the increase; in 2006 however, they were and resoundingly approved a much larger increase to finance a new library.

But in 2006 the county and the country did not have a Tea Party.  That movement sprang up early 2009 in fury at the federal government's attempt to help millions of people facing foreclosure stay in their homes.  In 2010 it escalated into a full-throated attack on the federal government's attempt to expand medical care access to tens of millions.  By 2012 the Tea Party movement's virulent anti-government, anti-tax philosophy and take-no-prisoners, I'm-not-my-brother's-keeper attitude had come to define American politics.

Pulaski County Tea Partiers, justifying their fury by noting the $1 increase had not been voted on by the people began circulating a petition to dissolve the library tax district completely.  The effort's leader declared her group would stop accumulating signatures only if all members of the current library board resigned. Read more...

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