Renewing Support for the Arts in the US: Low-Hanging Fruit

As widely reported (including on NPR's website):

The authors of [Obama's] stimulus package ...have included $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts and $150 million for infrastructure repairs at the Smithsonian.

In a package of almost a trillion dollars, one would assume aiding a sector of the economy that employs 5.7 million people (according to Michael Kaiser, head of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts) with such a small percentage of the funds would not raise many eyebrows, but once again we see that Conservative thinkers in this country have never seen any public money spent toward preserving those jobs that couldn't be used as a wedge issue to further their agenda:

"There is absolutely no way this will stimulate the economy," argues Brian Riedl, a senior federal budget analyst for the Heritage Foundation. He believes funding for the NEA — like several other items in the stimulus package — will not grow the economy.

"The only way to increase economic growth is to increase productivity," Riedl says. "Government policies that make people and workers more productive will increase productivity. But simply borrowing money out of the economy in order to transfer it to some artists doesn't increase the economy's productivity rate. It doesn't help workers create more goods and services, and it won't create economic growth."

For those who may not know them, the Heritage Foundation has opposed the use of any public funding to support the arts in the US--an argument they have every right to advance---but do so by cherry picking highly controversial works and suggesting there is a "true" art (and what one must assume is false art). They also insist that they aren't "anti-art" just because they oppose public funding. How vehemently they oppose it, and the arguments they make in justifying their opposition, however, undercut that insistence.

Side note: how informed their most vocal critics of NEA funding are is well illustrated by the hysterical irony of this statement in a piece by Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D., opposing Terrence McNally's play "Corpus Christi":

Know how you can get the government to fund religion? Produce a play depicting Jesus as a practicing homosexual and call it "art." [...] Don't confuse my opposition to the NEA as opposition to the arts. I'm just saying that true art will survive without federal handouts. The NEA didn't exist before 1965, but that didn't stop Tennessee Williams and Frederic Remington from blessing us with their works. [emphasis mine]

er...uh...where to begin?

Whether or not the additional funding for the NEA makes it through the transparently politically expedient opposition by the conservative wing of American politics, there is new hope that some progress can be made in using government (our government) to structure our laws in ways that are less hostile to the arts. Recently on the Art Newspapers website, David Ross, former director of the Whitney Museum, ICA Boston and SFMOMA, offered 10 immediate steps that the Obama administration could take toward renewing the arts in the US. Many of these are items we've discussed before, but never as a unified approach to hopefully moving past the culture wars. Mr. Ross explains the context for his 10 suggestions:

Restoring health to the American cultural community is but one of a vast and daunting set of tasks confronting President-elect Obama. And the success of this plan will depend on a number of factors, including the dedication and generosity of many individuals across the country, as well as the willingness of American artists to do their part in the re-building. But I believe that by implementing these suggested policies and actions, President Obama would provide the impetus and infrastructure upon which the rest of us could bring about critically necessary and truly meaningful change.

Here, for our input and/or debate, are Mr. Ross's recommendations:

1. Support the tax code amendment currently in the works that would give artists tax incentives for donating their work to public museums, and fully restore the tax incentive for gifts of appreciated property to museums and other non-profit educational organisations.

2. Re-establish a programme employing artists in a wide range of cultural institutions.

3. Revive and rebuild the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, de-politicising their processes, and providing them with budgets necessary to support the American cultural community. Nothing less than annual appropriation of $750m (as opposed to $290m today) is needed.

4. Create an independent study of the operating expenses of our museums and libraries, and then fund the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) sufficiently, so that the core costs of our museums and libraries can be properly met. (The same should be done in support of reinvigorating the infrastructure of our institutions of music, dance and theatre.)

5. Invest in art and music education for all school pupils, and ensure that these efforts are coordinated with the increased spending in direct artist support, as well as renewed institutional infrastructure and programme support.

6. Rebuild a new Arts America programme to allow American artists, musicians, dancers and writers to serve as cultural ambassadors and help rebuild the image of the United States around the world.

7. Simplify and expedite the process for obtaining (de-politicised) visas for visiting foreign artists, musicians and academics.

8. Restore direct federal and state grants for artists, musicians and writers (including critics).

9. Establish either a cabinet-level Secretary for Art and Culture, or at the very least, create a White House arts advisory office to coordinate and show presidential support for American culture.

10. Create an emergency bailout fund for cultural institutions in dire need during this current credit crisis. At least $250m will be necessary, but this is a drop in the ocean when compared with the value these institutions return to the nation as a whole. This single act will affirm to all that the federal government will not stand by and allow these great resources to falter.

I don't think it's likely that a cabinet-level Secretary for Art and Culture will be realized (this after talking with a journalist friend covering the Obama campaign and who's spent many years in D.C. covering politics), but then again, as the new President has noted, nothing can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for change, so it kind of depends on us, doesn't it?

Which of these actions would you speak up for?