I remember being a kid and my library book being a week overdue. My mom made me take my own allowance money down there to pay the fine. It was a whole dollar. But that lesson stuck with me. It taught me that this book wasn’t just mine, it was a shared resource I had to be responsible for. And that’s the core of this. My opponent is going to talk about access and equity, and those are important goals. But eliminating all late fees throws the baby out with the bathwater. Look, I get the argument. Fines can be a barrier. They can discourage people from coming back. But the solution isn’t to just wipe the slate clean forever. It’s to manage the system intelligently. We’re talking about a fundamental contract here. You borrow something that belongs to the whole community, and you agree to bring it back so someone else can use it. A small, reasonable financial consequence for failing to do that isn’t punitive; it’s a necessary incentive that keeps the whole system functioning. Think about what happens without that incentive. Books, DVDs, hotspots—these items would just disappear. They’d sit on someone’s shelf for months because there’s zero pressure to return them. That directly hurts access for the next person in line. It creates shortages. And who does that hurt most? It’s not the wealthy person who can just buy the book; it’s the low-income family, the student, the person relying entirely on the library’s collection. The fee isn’t a barrier to access—hoarding materials because there’s no consequence is the real barrier. And let’s be exhaustive here. This isn’t about punishing poverty. Libraries already have amazing, compassionate policies. They can waive fees for hardship cases, they have grace periods, they cap fines so they don’t spiral. Many have already eliminated fines for kids. That’s targeted, smart reform. But eliminating all fees entirely removes any sense of shared responsibility. It also removes a source of revenue that, while small, directly funds new materials and programs. You’re essentially defunding the library’s ability to replenish the very collection people aren’t returning. So yes, we should be humane. We should forgive, we should work with people, we should remove true barriers. But we cannot abandon the basic principle that public resources require public responsibility. A nominal late fee upholds that contract. It ensures the library works for everyone, not just the few who forget to bring things back.