Trump Administration Plans to Eliminate Government Support for Arts,
Humanities, Public Television
<https://dianeravitch.net/2017/02/19/trump-administration-plans-to-eliminate-government-support-for-arts-humanities-public-television/>
By dianeravitch <https://dianeravitch.net/author/dianerav/>
February 19, 2017
<https://dianeravitch.net/2017/02/19/trump-administration-plans-to-eliminate-government-support-for-arts-humanities-public-television/>
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<https://dianeravitch.net/2017/02/19/trump-administration-plans-to-eliminate-government-support-for-arts-humanities-public-television/#comments>
The Trump administration proves what some of us long feared and suspected:
the crackpot fringe of the right wants to dumb down the populace by
eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the
National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the
Humanities.
These Yahoos hate education.
<http://%E2%80%AAhttps//nyti.ms/2m5PFlL%E2%80%AC> They want the public to
be raised in ignorance of science, history, and art. They want to eliminate
funding for programs that educate the public. As long as you have a Bible,
what more do you need?
Arts organizations across the country are rallying to save the meager
amounts
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/arts/nea-cuts-trump-arts-reaction.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share>
of
federal funds that is available to supports the arts, humanities, and
culture.
“As the news spread that the White House budget office had included the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowments for the
Arts and the Humanities on a list of programs it was considering trying to
eliminate, arts leaders at large and small organizations around the nation
reacted with alarm — and began making plans to fight for their survival.
“The federal government plays a very small role in funding the arts,
especially compared with other affluent countries. Together, the three
programs that may be targeted account for less than one-tenth of 1 percent
of annual federal spending. But even if the arts get only crumbs,
administrators said, they are crumbs worth fighting for: much-needed money
that supports community projects, new works and making the arts accessible
to people in different parts of the country and to those who are not
wealthy.
“And after years of culture-war debates in which conservatives took aim at
the programs, questioning the value of some of the art that was publicly
funded, arts groups are pressing the case that the federal money they
receive supports organizations — and jobs — in all 50 states, both red and
blue.
“The N.E.A. has a big impact in the middle of country — even more so, I
suspect, than in urban areas where funding is more diversified,” said
Martin Miller, the executive director of TheatreSquared, a regional theater
in Fayetteville, Ark., that bills itself as the northwest part of the
state’s only year-round professional theater.
“Losing the N.E.A. would mean that many smaller, mid-American arts
companies couldn’t weather a recession,” he said, noting that the endowment
supports both state and regional arts councils. “Losing these companies
would mean fewer jobs, a lower quality of life and less local spending in
the small towns that need it most.”
“Many arts officials said they were gravely concerned that the programs
were back on the chopping block.
“It’s another example of our democracy being threatened,” the actor Robert
Redford, the president and founder of the Sundance Institute, which helps
filmmakers, said in a telephone interview. “Arts are essential. They
describe and critique our society.”
“President Trump is already facing pressure from some of his allies to
preserve the programs. Daryl Roth, a prominent Broadway producer (“Kinky
Boots,” “Indecent”) whose husband, Steven Roth, is a Trump adviser, said
that she opposed eliminating the programs and that she had expressed her
view to the Trump administration and would continue to do so.
“The concept of ending federal funding to the N.E.A. and to the many
nonprofit arts organizations, artists, writers, cultural institutions,
museums and all recipients that would be affected is of course of grave
concern to me,” Ms. Roth wrote in an email. “Arts education in the schools,
theater groups, music and dance programs help revitalize local communities,
both spiritually and economically, across the country.”
“The fate of the three organizations is still far from clear: An internal
memo that circulated within the Office of Management and Budget last week,
which was obtained by The New York Times, noted that the list of programs
targeted for elimination could still change. Officials at both of the
endowments said they had not received any official word from the White
House. But the programs have long been in the cross-hairs of conservatives.
“Romina Boccia, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think
tank, said Congress should eliminate federal arts grants altogether. “The
minuscule portion of art funding that comes from the federal government
does not support the arts in any meaningful way; rather, it distorts the
art market toward what is politically acceptable,” she said. She also
questioned the need for the federal government to support public
broadcasting.
“But arts administrators around the nation said in interviews that culture
had enjoyed bipartisan support in recent years, and that they were hopeful
their elected officials could be persuaded to keep the programs. They began
making plans last month to make the case for the arts to their audiences,
their well-connected board members and Congress.”
