This Mess Has a History

Last night most of us went to sleep believing the federal government would be closed for business when we awoke this morning. But – good news! – a deal was made and Planned Parenthood reports that “American women made their voices heard today, and Washington, DC, listened.”

We can all breathe a sigh of relief – for the moment, anyway – and get back to our day-to-day routines and concerns, like the fact that, despite last night’s wheeling-and-dealing, the economy is still a mess. And, yes, this mess has a history.

All last month, when students in my school library’s computer lab would log on to ProQuest, we’d be treated to the smiling, youthful visages of Nancy and Ronald Reagan, American flag whipping breezily in the background. I’m sure the students thought nothing of the photo, but I greatly resented ProQuest’s in-your-face propagandizing for the man whose administration launched the rich into Olympian orbits of ever-increasing wealth and shoved the middle class and poor onto the downward spiraling slide toward where we are today.

Because Another Unemployed Librarian makes no claims to economic expertise, today’s post recommends to readers two articles, one that illustrates and another that explains, Reagan’s economic legacy. The post finishes with two quotes from library sources reflecting what I believe to be the deeper intent of the destruction of public institutions and, conversely, the tremendous support the library still garners from the voting public.

Reagan’s Legacy – The Rich Get Richer

The economic policies of the Reagan administration brought us union-busting, corporate tax cutting, off-shore manufacturing, deregulating, and downsizing government services, all of which paved the way to situations like the one reported by the New York Times a mere two weeks ago on March 24th:

General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010. The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

Read the entire article “G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether,” by David Kocieniewski from the New York Times, March 24, 2011.

Those librarians who were paying attention in the early 1980s, and who have kept their eyes open ever since then, have witnessed the erosion of the tax base from which our libraries derive their fiscal wellbeing. Some believed that entrepreneurship, business models, deprofessionalization, and fundraising were the solution to declining budgets. However, others saw these trends for what they, in fact, are – the dismantling of the public sphere as a strategy to increase corporate profits and power. 1

John Miller, economics professor at Wheaton College, in his 2004 Up Against the Wall Street Journal column from Dollars and Sense entitled “Ronald Reagan’s Legacy” provides the background to our current economic crisis,

Two days after his death, the Wall Street Journal ran a lengthy editorial tribute to Ronald Reagan, in the editors' estimation the most important president since FDR. In their paean to the fortieth president, Reagan gets credit for everything from winning the Cold War to renewing a sense of optimism at home. Oh, and he gets extra kudos for doing it all with that famously sunny disposition.

On economic policy, as the Journal tells the story, by tying the hands of meddlesome government bureaucrats and cutting taxes, Reaganomics ignited an episode of miraculous economic growth that restored prosperity to the U.S. economy. But like much of what Reagan had to say while he was president, what the Journal offers is just so much happy talk that masks a mean-spirited, economically unsound, and socially destructive policy agenda.

Over the past 30 years, this whittling away at public agencies and services by corporations and their politician allies has gone on unabated largely because the mass media have promoted the policies, parties and ideologies responsible for outsourcing, downsizing, et al. Miller describes as “mean-spirited” policies which Kathleen de la Pena McCook more pointedly identifies in her 2003 article regarding attacks on the public library:

Tools of repression include the denial of access to information and the denial of opportunities to meet and discuss issues. 2 [emphasis added]

The use of economic policy for political repression is nothing new. What is new is that it is now being used to destroy the middle class and the public institutions which have been the pride, and measure, of American democracy.

Fortunately, the public at large still values the library enough to have passed 85% of all library operation levies put up for a vote in this last year.

When people are defaulting on their mortgages but still vote to invest in their library, they're clearly recognizing this as a core service,” Losinski says. “If anyone is questioning libraries' viability, the rate of referenda passage has proven something. 3

The big question is – how can librarians build on this support to counter the Reaganite behemoths and their tea-partying friends?



1. See John E. Buschman's Dismantling the Public Sphere: situating and sustaining librarianship in the age of the new public philosophy. Westport CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2003.

2. Kathleen de la Pena McCook. "Suppressing the commons. " Reference & User Services Quarterly 43.1 (2003): 14. Platinum Periodicals, ProQuest. Web. 9 Apr. 2011.

3. Beth Dempsey. "Voters Step Up. " Library Journal 15 Mar. 2010: Platinum Periodicals, ProQuest. Web. 9 Apr. 2011.

IMAGE: from Dollars and Sense website