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<div><br></div>You will make no impact at all unless your "Don't cut off the libraries!" is accompanied by some viable suggestion as to what to do to generate that money. Raising taxes in a down economy is a bad idea, so you're going to have to suggest which budget item or items should be cut to keep that $200+ million coming to the state's libraries.<div><br></div><div>Cut Medicaid? Close all the state parks? Close prisons and put the convicts into crowded cells at the other prisons, or release hundreds or thousands of them? Cut aid to the schools? To colleges and universities?</div><div><br></div><div>I use my library a great deal and have always voted in favor of library tax issues but, frankly, aid to the state's 251 public libraries would rank below any of those things mentioned above.</div><div> <br><div><div><div>On Jun 24, 2009, at 8:52 AM, <a href="mailto:neohiopal-request@listserve.com">neohiopal-request@listserve.com</a> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><div class="plainMail"> URGENT <br> ACT NOW to SAVE OUR LIBRARIES <br> <br> <br> Governor Strickland proposes to fill Ohio's $3.2 billion shortfall in the <br>state budget by eliminating $200+ million from the Public Library Fund over <br>the next two years. His proposal will have a drastic impact on all 251 public<br>libraries in Ohio and on Columbus Metropolitan Library in particular. <br> <br> This proposal by the Governor cuts library funding by 50% beginning July 1, <br>2009. <br> <br> We only have days to have an impact. </div></blockquote></td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote></div></div></div></body></html>