I rarely have cause to celebrate when the federal government is involved, but the results of the congressional budget, which Trump signed Friday, have been unexpectedly victorious for the arts.
Rather than eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the new budget gives each nonprofit a $3 million increase from the previous year’s budget.
The arts are a good investment of public funds and are comparatively cheap to sustain when you consider the budget holistically.
According to the NEA, the NEA’s nationally inclusive programs cost $147.9 million in 2016, which made up just 0.004 percent of the federal budget that year.
If any government organization deserves a cut to its funding, it is the military. However much you might support the troops, there just isn’t any sense in the United States spending more than the next eight biggest national defense budgets combined. And yet, defense spending will increase by 10 percent for the 2019 fiscal year.
Nevertheless, artists and public audiences should find joy in the knowledge that one of their biggest supporters will once again survive.
These organizations are vitally important to the American arts scene. As the NEA's website states, the NEA is “the only funder, public or private, that provides equal access to the arts in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories.”
When you think of government-funded art, you might skeptically assume that the NEA benefits only the nation’s most elite museums and artists.
In actuality, the NEA specifically designates 40 percent of its grant funds for regional and local programming that responds to individual communities’ needs.
These programs range from arts education for underserved communities to creative writing fellowships for which anyone can apply.
In fact, not too long ago, the NEA provided the Monroe County Public Library here in Bloomington with a grant to support its Power of Words program and to participate in the NEA’s nationwide Big Read project, which aims to bring communities together through reading groups and author visits.
MCPL was awarded $20,000 in 2017, which it used to fund book discussions centered around Celeste Ng’s novel “Everything I Never Told You”; a free speaking event with Jamie Ford, author of “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet”; and other public events.
The arts are often shirked as luxurious pastimes in which responsible people only occasionally indulge after the real work is done.
Although I will skip over the unjustified notion that artists do not do real work, I will argue that it would be much more difficult to enjoy life without public opportunities to engage in the arts.
Research has shown with confidence that the arts improve physical and psychological well-being, provide economic stimuli and increase academic performance, among other benefits.
For these reasons, and for the laudably inclusive and comprehensive work accomplished by worthy organizations like the NEA, public investment in the arts should continue.
For these reasons, I find myself in the unlikely position of thanking the men and women in Washington.
