Fast Bind, Fast Find

New at Reason: A federally funded Shakespeare tour may not add much to the deficit, but does the country really need it? Jacob Sullum explains why a budget that doesn't cut the obviously dispensable won't be cutting much of anything else.

Comments

[T Bone]

How is it that Bush gets to give seemingly every special interest a little bit of what they want? Should we start calling him 'Slick Bush'?

Anyway, I disagree with Mr. Cavanaugh's logic. The problem is that the "obviously dispensible" is not universally agreed upon. The answer (the only thing people will feel is fair) is to cut everything a little bit; then a little bit more; and a little bit more...

[Brady]

I agree w/ T. The notion that NEA contributions are "obviously dispensable" is simply an opinion, which is not really something that can provide the basis for an interesting argument.

[Pete Guither]

True. They're not "obviously dispensible." At this point, I wonder if it's worth the bother to keep the wounded beast that used to be the NEA alive any more, but I think it's important to realize that it had a value that was stronger than the actual amount of money it doled out.

I've worked with arts groups most of my life and have seen how the endowment was supposed to work. It would usually take years of application before the NEA would consider your organization, including very detailed applications and review panels, and you had to prove that your organization was fiscally responsible, properly audited, etc.

Just attempting to apply for NEA grants provided huge benefits to a bunch of organizations run by artists that realized they needed to learn and apply basic business techniques. The NEA provided help in these areas, including some business partnership grants in the 80s to provide a basic computer to some groups.

All NEA grants had to be matched by private donations (individual or corporate/foundation gifts). In this regard, the NEA grants acted as seed money. If I approached a corporation or a foundation for a grant and I could say I had received an NEA grant, it made it much easier, because the corporate and foundation officers knew what you had to go through to get an NEA grant and your organization became much more attractive to them (partly because they could be more confident that their donation would be used and accounted for properly). NEA grants stimulated other giving.

Finally, it was the early years of the NEA that helped bring about regional theatres around the country, and symphony orchestras, and encouraged state development of arts in education programs.

I am a huge fan of the mission of the NEA and what it has done and what it could be. The amount of money spent on federal arts funding in this country during its peak was less than the amount spent on military marching bands.

Yet I will say right here that I'm in favor of eliminating all NEA funding if it could be tied to across the board fiscal discipline in this government.

Fat chance.

[dj of raleigh]

> a budget that doesn't cut the obviously dispensable won't be cutting much of anything else.

[garym]

The NEA does not fulfill any constitutionally permitted purpose of the government. That makes it obviously dispensable (along with at least half of what the federal government does).

Personally, I'd like to see the NEA abolished now, simply because the people on its gravy train are so self-righteous about it, and because they routinely recast the amount of money spend on them into cents-per-taxpayer amounts which are by design a pain to verify or to compare with other expenditures.