Closing the Library

It is fairly standard procedure for state and local politicians, whenever faced with having less money available than they want to spend, to resort to the old trick of closing the library, i.e. selecting something they do that many taxpayers actually like and benefit from and announcing, reluctantly, that they will have to cut way back on it unless they get some sort of tax increase. The people running public school districts are masters of this. They usually greet any shortfall in their budgets with dire warning about having to lay teachers off, stop patching roofs, and quit serving milk in the school cafeterias while remaining utterly silent about possible cost savings from eliminating frivolous or unproductive activities and reducing the number of administrators, co-coordinators, counselors, third deputy activity directors and other bureaucrats who never enter a classroom.

Sad to say, this sort of thing usually works. The politicians and bureaucrats make their threats. They receive a sympathetic chorus from the press, complete with outrageous sob stories if possible, and generally after a while get their way. Not enough taxpayers are astute enough to ask what fraction of the budget the library (or the city park or the fire department or the state police or whatever has been selected) makes up, what alternative cuts could be made in other departments, and what cost savings would be possible through increased efficiency, elimination of “services” that add no value, and reducing headcount in the various administrative and bureaucratic areas instead of among the people who actually do the work in those departments that actually do something useful.

Exceptions to this become more likely during times when the taxpayers are also feeling the pressure of economic difficulty. Thus one of the good things that can come out of recessions is a chance to cut back on the cancerous growth of state and local government. When recessions bite hard enough, the closing the library gambit may not work. Governments may have to make hard decisions under scrutiny and trim down at least a little of their fat and cut back a bit on their reach. One of the worst things about the so-called stimulus of the federal government is that it is preventing this from happening enough during the current recession by subsidizing state and local governments so that they will not face hard choices. Indeed, large parts of the stimulus would be better labeled the No Bureaucrat Left Behind Act. This will have the effect of preventing needed pruning of state and local governments and making the eventual recovery less robust and the nation less prosperous.