Federal Hands in the Local Cookie Jar

Now, I don’t mean to rile anybody up more than necessary–but I must ask—why–in the name of my wife’s sugar cookies, do we need Washington’s fingers fiddling in our local affairs regarding libraries and museums?

Last I checked, bookshelves, storytime, and dusty dioramas were matters of local concern. And yet here comes Senator Jacky Rosen, hat in hand, joined by twenty-five other Capitol-wanderers, sending a letter to the acting head of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)—begging, mind you—to keep the federal purse strings from tightening.

The IMLS, if you haven’t heard of it–and you’d be forgiven–is the only federal outfit dedicated to handing out taxpayer money for the upkeep and advancement of libraries and museums. According to the senator’s press release—which reads like a sales pitch at a church potluck—nearly 640,000 Nevadans benefit from this agency’s grant-fed generosity.

That includes veterans who rely on the Talking Books Library, students tapping into research databases, children in summer reading programs, and cultural efforts in tribal communities. Even the Discovery Children’s Museum gets a cut of the pie.

But here’s the part that needs looking at–these are all local programs enjoyed by local people on local soil. And I ask you—shouldn’t local problems be solved with local money? Why must we always ride the federal gravy train to keep the library lights on? Isn’t that what county taxes and state budgets are supposed to be for?

It seems mighty peculiar that with all the taxes we pay here at home—sales tax, property tax, state this and county that—we’re still expected to go begging to Washington every year like Oliver Twist with an empty bowl. If our libraries are so vital, and I believe they are, shouldn’t we have the backbone to fund them ourselves without waiting for some Beltway bureaucrat to send a check with conditions scribbled in fine print?

Because mark my words, when the feds pay the fiddler, they soon want to call the tune. And maybe today it’s money for summer reading, but tomorrow it might be a mandate telling us which books we can shelve and which we can’t.

So I say again—why are we spending federal dollars to solve a local problem? And if our local governments can’t handle it, maybe we should ask them what they’ve been doing with all the money we already gave’em.