Like many teachers, you deserve credit for doing an important community job for not much money, and it's good that there are people out there like you who put values over salary. It wouldn't have to be that way, but I'll get back to that.

A few points:

"Business Is Always Good And Government Is Always Bad."

I don't think any of us have been this simplistic, have we?

I have noticed that people who squawk the most about providing tax moneys for public services are the ones who can mostly afford to pay for things themselves. Not funding services for those on the lower end of the economic structure provides a certain amount of support for the status quo. If we have greatly reduced public expenditures, we also have greatly reduced opportunities for people on the bottom of the pyramid to better themselves and threaten the positions of those closer to the top. This keeps them on the bottom, where only the genius can break out alone, and the talented must find mentors in the educated classes.

Oh, come on. This is not worthy of you. Did you read this somewhere? Do you honestly think that the main reason I complain about half my income being ripped from me is because I'm worried it will be used to train or educate someone who might take my job??? Do you honestly believe that the government is the only source of opportunity for the struggling people in this world?

In a free-market system it is to the benefit of EVERYONE to have people upwardly mobile. Can you sell a new car to a street person? Does he eat at nice restaurants? Will he buy a computer, or a TV, or anything else corporate America would love to sell him? Your average CEO would be tickled pink if every last person on the planet was middle class or better.

And I'm sorry, but taxing the money away from corporate America and giving it to the street person so he can buy a TV is missing the point entirely.

...I'm working in a new facility that has tripled its floor space, increased its number of public access computers by a factor of 10, and increased its hours. It's a wonderful space. We can afford only two full-time employees, and have increased our total staff from 6 in the old building to 9 in the new one. I am so tired I can hardly think straight; later on, I'll be doing the monthly report on my (only) day off, because I'm helping patrons all the time when I'm in the building. This is, unfortunately, typical in my state, and another reason we lost a wonderful reference guy to a private organization. But that's the way it works in business, isn't it? People have been asking me, fearfully, "Are you leaving too?"

You might want to check your library's budget. Purely speculating, with no more information than you have given me, I notice a considerable amount seems to have been spent on facilities and hardware, and not so much on personnel. Now, this doesn't mean anything by itself, but it's worth noting that when local governments are spreading funding money around to favored local businesses and constituents, buildings and hardware are where the money goes. Who was the contractor, and who did they get the computers from? Conversely, there is little political hay to be made by hiring five more people with that money. Think about it.

Again, credit to you for doing a good job with less-than-spectacular incentives.

Social workers dealing with child care issues (who I see on family literacy-related matters) and probation officers (with whom I often work, finding alternative sentences for non-violent youthful offenders) are similarly squeezed: bigger work load, though the day is still 24 hours long. But without help and support, people will stay in their same old hopeless groove, and give the lie to the dream of the meritocracy and upward mobility.

No one is arguing that this is work that should not be done. Again, the assumption seems to be that "unless the government helps people, no one will." There is no evidence of this, other than the fact that the government constantly repeats it until people believe it. "Social worker" and "government employee" do not have to be synonyms. I am getting a bit sick of saying things along the lines of "the government should not be doing this job" and having everyone shoot back, "HA! You heartless, evil Scrooge! You want these poor people to DIE and REDUCE THE SURPLUS POPULATION!" That is NOT the only conclusion that can be drawn.

Conservatives that I know, especially here, tend to express morality in terms of individual actions and patriotism in terms of collective actions. I tend to look at it the other way, because of what I see in my world and at my job. While I agree that one's personal morality often hinges on the decisions one makes for one's self, I also see that some decisions are profoundly limited by ignorance and poverty, conditions beyond the scope of one individual to help unless he happens to be Andrew Carnegie -- who created many of the conditions that he later corrected through philanthropy -- or Bill Gates -- whose company, to judge by the remarks, has few friends here. ;)

This is also false. Obviously, from your own work and the work of people you know, one individual can help another, or many others, without having to command billions of dollars. If you didn't think it was worthwhile to bother to save one starfish unless you could somehow save a beach full of them, you would be in the wrong job. I don't think you feel this way.

And what exactly is "collective" patriotism? I view patriotism as many individual actions combined, which I don't think is the same thing.

BTW, it's worth noting that Andrew Carnegie--who, if there was any justice, would have his portrait in every library in the country--started out in a sweatshop at 13, and I don't think he had a lot of access to social workers.

Sometimes a society has to act collectively to provide something resembling a chance to its less able members. I think that the quarrel we have on this board is not whether this is true, but to what extend it is to be pursued.

Again--and I wish I could tattoo this onto a couple of people (not you)--saying that the government should not be the source of funds for assistance and charity is not the same thing as saying assistance and charity should not exist. Only government bureaucrats, who think the sun rises because they got up that morning, say such things and honestly believe them. The outpouring of private support in the wake of September 11 is typical of what can be done "collectively" without having to point a gun at anyone.

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There are ungodly amounts of money funneled out of the pockets of citizens and "laundered" by local, state, and Federal governments until the trickle comes back for things like your library. I don't think you realize the immense drain on productivity and charity that this is.

I paid $31,000 in Federal and State taxes last year (I think that might be worth at least a small squawk.)

This is almost enough money to pay the salary of that $13/hour employee ALL BY MYSELF. Combine me with one other citizen in my income bracket and by golly, we could pay a librarian a damn good salary. And that's two people out of an entire population of tens of thousands just in my city alone. Too bad I don't get to decide what to do with that money.

If libraries were private, and competitive, like almost any other entity that successfully provides services to a wide range of incomes, your town might have two small libraries, or three. Maybe some would specialize, like restaurants. Maybe some would be national, and online. Maybe they would be a franchise, like a store. They would charge most people a membership fee. Maybe they would allow poor people a special deal, or a private charity would donate free memberships to be passed out. Each library would be trying to make sure that they got the most customers, and had the best reputation. And you would be picking and choosing to find the best job.

The free market always works.

The people who are telling you it won't are the people who really ARE benefitting from the "status quo." I find it amusing that people blindly accept pronouncements on the indispensability of big government, when it is the government making the pronouncements. This is like taking Ronald McDonald's word on how good greasy hamburgers are for you.