> $4 million is a lot of money for a library and completely unnecessary in current economic conditions

It's a total of $4.5 million across all libraries in the state. In other words, nothing.

Libraries aren't a luxury, they are a valuable community resource, especially in tough economic times. This is a place where people can get access to the Internet and education, which helps them get jobs, which allows them to support themselves and ultimately pay taxes.

It's comically evil to cut such a small amount of money for the state's public libraries under pretty much any circumstance (The total budget is ~50 billion dollars). Libraries should be considered some of our crowning achievements: (nearly) free and unprivileged access to as much knowledge as we can cram into a single building.

Unfortunately, one of the primary political parties is actively waging war on education and information.

$4 million across an entire state worth of libraries

Libraries, not a library.