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Budget Cuts Series: National Endowment for the Arts Likely Dead at 52 Years Old
The White House is planning to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts in its proposed budget in May. Trump's Director of Budget Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council, Paul Winfree, is an economist from the conservative Heritage Foundation, which put out a budget blueprint last year that included axing the NEA.
The National Endowment for the Arts was created in 1965 to invest in culture similar to how we invested in science. Congress has decreased its budget in recent years from $167.5 million in 2010 to $148 million in 2016.
On a per capita basis, smaller and more rural states came out on top, including Wyoming, Vermont and Alaska. It’s states like those that arts advocates say will be hit hardest if the federal spigot is turned off. “NEA funds are a larger portion of the state arts budgets in some states with smaller or more rural populations,” said Pam Breaux, head of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, which receives some support from the NEA. She said NEA grants acts as an “equalizer” with more populous states that have more resources for the arts.
An editorial in The Hill stated, "We are now the only country in the world without a federal arts presence." It went on to say:
The NEA will also be remembered as the agency that created arts councils in every state and most cities; that spread the professionalization of arts organizations throughout America; and that generated important new fields, such as art therapy for war victims; creative place making and the rebirth of cities; research into economics, mental health, inequality and aging, among many; and whose leaders persuaded private funders of the value of artists and the arts.
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