this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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Lemmy is like a public library of the internet: it's one of the few places where you can exist without the expectation of paying either through watching ads or through direct payments (lemmy.ml)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/showerthoughts
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[–] FlyingSquid 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Taxes are not direct payments and taxes would be collected regardless of the existence of libraries.

[–] TheRealKuni 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Taxes are not direct payments and taxes would be collected regardless of the existence of libraries.

I dunno about where you live, but where I live libraries are funded by millage. We vote to fund the libraries specifically with a tax. So if we didn’t have the libraries, we wouldn’t pay that millage.

Taxes would still be collected, but not THAT tax.

[–] FlyingSquid 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Do you think you would pay any less in tax if there was no library?

[–] TheRealKuni 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Again, where I live, yes. If we, as voters, decided not to approve the library millage, we would no longer pay that specific tax which funds the library.

The library would coast for a bit, but would eventually shut down unless we voted to start paying that tax again.

I know this is true because it literally happened a few towns over where a bunch of dipshits voted to stop funding their library over LGBTQ books. Fortunately the library was kept afloat by donations until a millage was eventually approved to keep it funded.

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

a rate of 0.4119 mills

I would suggest that the tax cut in that case is so negligible as to be essentially nonexistent from a taxpayer's perspective.

[–] TheRealKuni 8 points 5 months ago

Well, sure, but that’s not the point. I’m just saying the tax money that I pay to fund the library is something I specifically pay to fund the library. If we didn’t have the library, my taxes would be lower by the amount of my taxes that goes towards the library.

(Obviously, libraries are a fantastic use of tax money and I would never vote not to pay the meager amount I do to fund them.)

[–] boojumliussnark 1 points 5 months ago

Even if we were to accept that at face value, it does not change the fact that libraries are paid for by taxes, which was my exact statement. My point was not what you seem to interpret in any case. My point, if any, was that we get a lot of really cool stuff for taxes... And also that, as most other things, they are not actually free.