In a stunning demonstration of either ignorance or mendacity, the Seattle Times' Bruce Ramsey editorialized  earlier this week that because Seattle's libraries are a service "essential" to democracy, they "deserve" a more stable form of funding than the seven-year library levy. Ramsey's solution? Fund libraries entirely out of the city's general fund:

"This current levy proposal is mostly for libraries' day-to-day expenses, and these are neither optional nor one-time. They are essential and ongoing. They should be paid from general taxes, the same as police and fire services."

Ramsey's defiant stance ignores both practical and olitical reality.

Quick primer on the library levy, on the ballot August 5: Most of the library system's funding (for services, personnel, and the city librarian's office, among other things) comes out of the city's general fund. Over the past five years, though, that funding has fallen short of demand for library services, forcing library closures (more than half of all libraries are closed two days a week, and the entire system shuts down for a week every August), shorter hours, and less money to replace aging book and electronic collections. Funding for building maintenance has declined by 50 percent. At the same time, library use increased by 57 percent between 1998 and 2007. The library levy would provide $17 million a year to fund building maintenance, collections, hours, and computer services.

OK, back to Ramsey. In a fantasy world, where general-fund revenues could grow every year in proportion to demand for services, I would absolutely agree with him: All essential services, including housing, parks, and transportation, would be paid for with general-fund revenues, which come from property taxes, sales taxes, and business and occupation taxes, among others. As those revenues increased year over year, they would be adequate to fund everything the city needs, including not just police and fire but libraries.

Unfortunately, we don't live in that fantasy world.

Seattle has been in a recession since 2008, forcing budget cuts at the city level every year. By law, the city has to have a balanced budget every year. By unstated policy (i.e., people like Ramsey would haul out the torches and pitchforks), the city always tries to hold the police and fire departments---and, to a slightly lesser extent, human services---harmless when crafting budgets. That means that when city budget officials are making cuts, they have a significantly smaller pie to cut from, since fire and public safety services make up about 57 of the general fund, with human services contributing another 6 percent.

That leaves just 37 percent of the general fund---about $340 million---to cut from to balance the budget. Ramsey's preferred solution---add another $17 million to the city's non-human-services, non-public safety budget each year---simply isn't tenable in that situation. Ramsey, unsurprisingly, does not say which programs he would cut to afford an additional $17 million a year for libraries.

But why not just raise general taxes to make up the new expenses? Not allowed. Thanks to Tim Eyman's I-747 (overturned but subsequently re-passed by the legislature), the city can only raise property taxes by one percent a year---significantly less than the growth of demand for city services. Cutting, then, becomes the only option.

Ramsey takes this logic and turns it on its head, arguing that by funding ongoing services like library operations and collections with levies, the city gives itself leeway to cut library funding to pay for other services. "If the voters add new money, the City Council can take out some of the old money and spend it on something else. In fact, it plans to do that." Which is true. And to which I ask, again: Given that budgets are shrinking, and need is increasing, every year, what "something else" would Ramsey prefer not to fund? Police? Fire? Pothole repairs?

In conclusion, Ramsey argues that the reason the city puts libraries on the ballot is because they're popular---unlike (his examples) homeless services, and the city's environmental office. While it's true that libraries are popular (the last library levy, in 2004, passed with 62 percent of the vote), what Ramsey doesn't mention is that the examples he gives cost a minuscule portion of the city's vast library system. OSE, for example, cost the city $1.8 million in 2012. While it's unclear what Ramsey means by a "homeless services" levy, one comparable category in the city's human services budget, homeless intervention, costs the city $3.8 million. The library system, not counting the levy, cost $37 million.

But Ramsey doesn't look at the actual numbers, and who can blame him? Taken on its face, of course his argument makes sense: The city should be able to fund libraries without asking voters to foot the bill. The problem is that, both practically and politically, they can't. But it's easy to take a principled stand when you don't have to offer an alternative.