Indiana residents are unloading on Republican lawmakers after funding was pulled from Dolly Parton’s beloved children’s book program, with one furious local asking: “Can we not be cartoonishly evil?”
The anger follows a Raw Story report detailing funding cuts affecting Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, the nonprofit that mails free books to young children.
According to the report, Indiana removed state funding for the program from its budget last year, even though more than 125,000 children were enrolled at the time.
Missouri has also cut support, reducing funding from $6 million in fiscal year 2026 to $2 million for 2027 and freezing new enrollment on July 1.
The Imagination Library, founded by Parton in 1995, has distributed more than 300 million books worldwide and currently serves more than 3 million children.
For Indiana residents discussing the news over on the local subreddit, however, the numbers only made the decision harder to swallow.
One commenter wrote simply: “Trash.”
Another asked: “Gods forbid anybody in Indiana should be able to read or write.”
The frustration went far beyond one literacy program, with commenters portraying the funding decision as another example of state leaders cutting services that directly benefit ordinary Hoosiers.
Indiana Residents Turn Their Anger Toward State Leadership
One parent offered perhaps the most personal reaction, writing that they would have to explain the loss of the books to their three-year-old.
“These people decided your future isn’t worth investing in,” the commenter wrote.
Another Indiana user complained that lawmakers were dismantling something that had been working, while others focused their anger directly on Republican leadership.
“At this point, they are bragging that they let us have electricity,” one commenter joked.
Another accused state officials of hypocrisy for emphasizing reading in schools while withdrawing support from a program specifically designed to put books in the hands of preschool-aged children.
That contradiction became the central grievance running through the discussion. Indiana officials regularly talk about literacy, education standards and preparing children for the future. Critics now see the Imagination Library decision as moving in precisely the opposite direction.
Parton’s program is unusually simple. Children receive books. Families do not have to buy them. The aim is to encourage reading before children even enter school.
That simplicity may explain why the cuts have landed so badly. Angry residents have no complicated bureaucracy to decipher here. There are children, books and a program that had already reached tens of thousands of Indiana families.
For Hoosiers furious with state leadership, the question is no longer simply why the funding disappeared. It is why a program this easy to understand became expendable at all.
