More than 50 people stood outside the Enoch Pratt Library’s Southeast Anchor branch on a recent spring morning in Baltimore. Parents with small children, teenagers, and senior citizens clustered outside the door and waited to hear their ticket numbers called.
They weren’t there for books—at least, not at that moment. They came to shop for groceries.
Connected to the library, the brightly painted market space is small but doesn’t feel cramped. Massive windows drench it in sunshine. In a previous life, it was a café. Now, shelves, tables, counters, and a refrigerator are spread out across the room, holding a mix of produce and shelf-stable goods.
The problem with taxes is that a rather large chunk of it just goes to the military industrial complex and other wasteful government spending, and very little of it actually ends up helping to feed the poor. If you donate to charity directly, there’s a much better chance that most of the money goes to actual people in need instead of the pockets of corrupt politicians.
I agree there, and I don’t think anyone is arguing that charities don’t generally do good work. I don’t want to see what little of that chunk of taxes that do go to helping people be cut away leaving only more of taxes to go in to the MIC, corruption and waste.