Well, that last comment was heavy with sarcasm since I have found that many of the people who will adamantly oppose institutions such as libraries, public education, health care, mass transit, etc. will scream bloody murder if roads aren't expanded (or whatever their pet program is).

But I would suggest that a lot of people forget why a lot of these institutions. Governments usually fund libraries, schools, hospitals, mass transit, power generation, etc. for economic reasons (rather than idealistic socialist goals). Roads were originally built to facilitate the transportation of goods. Power generation was taken over by government to provide cheap electricity for factories, schools were funded to create an educated workforce and indoctrinated citizens. In other words, it is mostly about jobs. That doesn't change the fact that people such as myself support them for more socialistic ideals, but I don't think that the opinion of left-wingers should persuade the other side that these government services aren't necessary.

After all, libraries are good for adult education (which is poorly serviced by the government otherwise). Libraries provide valuable resources for entrepreneurs to do market research prior to setting out to create new jobs (which they couldn't afford to do if they had to pay for database access themselves). And the list can go on. These institutions are a net benefit to almost everyone ... unless you believe that we should go back to the "good old days" when these resources didn't exist.