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Those Arts-Loving Republicans

Laura Bush announced today that her husband would seek an $18 million dollar increase for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)--so that it could teach Americans about "three centuries of artistic genius." Its a nice gesture, but it was Bush's friends that slashed the NEA's funding by 40% in 1996, from $170 to $99 million (from which it has never recovered). And its not exactly what this country's artists are dying for--a chance to educate Americans about old art. In fact, this money won't go to artists at all. God forbid we give money to the NEA that's actually intended for artists, or to make art.

I can't seem to locate any studies on per-capita arts spending across the world from data any later than 1995 (hmm, I guess funding for those got cut too). But in 1995, it went like this (rough numbers):

USA: $6
Ireland: $9
Australia: $25
UK: $26
Canada: $46
Netherlands: $46
France: $57
Sweden: $57
Germany: $85
Finland: $91

Now by 2003, US federal spending on the arts had fallen to $0.40 per capita. Yes, that's 40 cents. And that's not adjusted for inflation against the $6/person number from 1995. Does anyone notice a pattern in those numbers above? It would seem that the more you spend on the arts, the less likely you are blow your money on bombs and drop them on countries that haven't attacked you and have no ability to do so in the future.

So maybe that's why Bush has decided to up the budget for the NEA--he's hoping it will help pull us out of Iraq. No, this decision has two other motivations, and here they are. First, if one was going to give more money to the NEA, then there's no way its going to actually fund art production. Thus the decision to put it towards talking about old conservative art that isn't so challenging. Second, he's not going to actually fund anything anyway. You have to remember that Bush does this at least once/week, sometimes more--he tosses out a new spending initiative as a trial balloon to see what people think (i.e. men to Mars, 'No Child Left Behind', new firefighters, etc.). If they like it, he gets some goodwill. If they don't, no biggie because he'll throw another one out next week and they might like that one more. But those that did like it generally won't follow it long enough to see that he never actually finds the money to fund the program.

You see, the NEA 'announcement' was just a little tiny blip in a large budget picture today. The administration announced that oops, we made a little mistake on that medicare giveway (uh, I mean 'bill'), and we were off by oh, 30%. That 30% comes out to $140 billion dollars, sending the already record deficit soaring over $500 billion this year.

You'll forgive me if I don't get excited about Bush's newfound interest in the arts.

Posted on January 29, 2004 08:12 PM

Comments

When I was in Holland last time, I met a person who was an out of work artist. She was a designer/sculpter/painter, but had lost a job designing cloths a few months before I talked with her. She told me how any artist in Holland can receive a monthly payment, all they have to do is meet with a care worker and discuss their art and their plans of what their art means to their society. She told me that an artist could very well stay on this government funded plan for many years, and in fact some modern artist do just that. She talked about it as if that was a right, that she deserved such help from her government. Obviously, other governments care much more about art and the people's interest in it, and that changes the artists view as well. Example: do artists in this country really believe that they "deserve" to be funded by their government for as long as they wish? Damn, I certainly don't have that believe. Maybe I would if I grew up in a different society, one that actually respected artist, not really dead ones, but artists that are alive today and trying to make art.

Posted by Alex Lazarevich on January 30, 2004 09:08 AM

I think artists in this country are willing to work just as hard as (and often harder than) most anyone. What drives them down is that in general, the culture of the U.S. holds very little interest in what an artist does or why they do it. We teach our children that the arts aren't important but cutting art class but keeping football. We teach our adults that the arts aren't important by starving arts programs, but giving tax breaks to Enron. Consequently, the public lacks respect for the arts, nor interest in purchasing art of their own. They don't see the point--how will it increase their bottom line or save them on their taxes? Will it get them a bigger SUV or a bigger steak or a bigger TV?

Ireland doesn't tax creative earnings. Think of the message that sends to the population...it says that the arts are so important that we won't hinder our artists with taxes. That their contribution to society is more important than the (small amount of) taxes the goverment would collect.

I say lets try that here. It would probably only cost Bush about one-half of one taxpayer-funded fundraising trip each year, and it would change the environment in at least an interesting way.

Posted by bg on February 1, 2004 07:32 PM

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