National Endowment for the Arts

[Ed McPherson]

I wrote a paper for my US Government class on the NEA. I am a ballet dancer and went to a boarding arts high school, regardless of the fact that everyone things I should be more liberal I believe that the organization shouldnt exist. I think some might find it interesting. Unfortunently, the footnotes did not transfer.

taken from my Blog

The National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) states that their organization is, “the largest annual funder of the arts in the United States. An independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Arts is the official arts organization of the United States government.” Its opponents state that the NEA is, “an unwarranted extension of the federal government into the voluntary sector.” The NEA was founded in 1965 as part of president Johnson’s Great Society initiatives. In more detailed accounts, opponents of the NEA note that, “…few federal agencies have been mired in more controversy than the NEA. Nevertheless, steadfast partisans of “welfare for artists” continue to defend the Endowment…” Critics also stress that the National Endowment for the Arts does not promote charitable giving as the organization promotes a very small and defined portion of America’s artists. The NEA says this about itself, “Before the Establishment of the NEA in 1965, the arts were limited mostly to a few big cities. The Arts Endowment has helped create regional theatre, opera, ballet, symphony orchestras, museums and other art organizations that Americans now enjoy. In its 38 year history, the NEA has awarded more than 120,000 grants that have brought art to Americans in communities large and small.” Conservatives and Liberals fight over these basic issues: whether the arts are a “voluntary sector”, whether the NEA brings art to people who otherwise would not be exposed to it, and whether NEA sponsored art is enriching and inoffensive.

One of the NEA’s major claims is to have increased public accessibility to the arts. The number of nonprofit professional theatre companies in the United States is an example that proponents cite frequently. In 1965 there were roughly 50 nonprofit theatre companies; there are now 600. The NEA does not hesitate in taking responsibility for this proliferation in the arts. Conservatives argue that the arts ability to flourish is not due directly to the NEA’s activities, but to a growing and more affluent and culturally attuned population. What is clear is that the NEA has been largely successful in distributing grants and money throughout the last half of the 20th century. The majority of NEA grants have gone to creating art that is enjoyed and respected by most Americans. The uncertainty surrounding the quantification of the NEA’s ability to facilitate greater public accessibility to art makes it impossible to put numbers and absolute values on the impact of the NEA. This makes any sort of calculations on the arts dependence on the NEA equally difficult. These two unanswerable questions and sticking points have given American politicians much to debate about. This peripheral frenzy has allowed the political system to guilefully ignore the true ideological question it faces; whether the federal government is responsible for supporting and subsidizing American art.

The NEA distributes its funds through grant giving procedures that are highly controversial and have been routinely criticized by both parties. All government subsidies have criteria, and obtaining NEA grants is extremely difficult. It is understood that the NEA cannot distribute grants on a random basis; thus it is dictated that the biases of the agency, whether they be liberal or conservative, are inevitably seen in its granting process. Senior Editor of “The Progress Report,” Mr. Fred E. Foldvary, makes an interesting point when noting, “Since some art is controversial, grants necessarily discriminate. As The Brooklyn Exhibit shows, if the works [controversial] are subsidized, it forces taxpayers to finance art they find revolting.” The NEA has acknowledged the desire to avoid the promotion of a canon of ‘politically correct’ art. With this in mind, liberals argue that if works like the Brooklyn Exhibit do not receive funding it unfairly denies controversial artists an equally opportunity.

The NEA as a branch of the, highly equal opportunity, federal government has walked a fine line in granting money to individuals and projects that include experimental work. The NEA distributes approximately 4,000 grants a year. At this rate, with even a slightly flawed system, demographics within the population are bound to be offended by a few radical works that are mistakenly or unmistakenly funded. It is the vocal minority that has been so exploitive and damning of NEA sponsored art that is labeled offensive. As a way to ensure continued existence and funding, the NEA should acknowledge these minority groups and adopt an openly discriminate stance in their granting process. Stating outright, what types of art they wont support and for what reasons. Furthermore, out of political self preservation the NEA should reconsider supporting artists who have a history of producing art that is offensive or based on subjects deemed generally offensive such as religion and sex. The NEA should quickly condemn artists who use their NEA granted money in the creation of highly controversial artwork so as not minimize the offense taken by others. The NEA might best serve itself if it let controversial artists utilize private sources of capital. For those that champion highly controversial artwork, it is not unreasonable to assume that if the NEA were to adopt an openly discriminate stance, against controversial artwork, it would surely stimulate a wave of innovative retaliatory art.

For years Republicans and Democrats have argued over the financial effectiveness of the NEA. Republicans have singled out this issue as the key point in their fight to disband the agency. Democrats have worked vehemently maintaining that the NEA serves a crucial arts sector that would be left defunct if federally neglected. By the standards of most large charitable institutions the NEA is a staggeringly ineffective agency. Twenty-five cents of every tax dollar that goes to the National Endowment for the Arts is lost in bureaucratic overhead. The NEA as an established agency is fully entrenched in the federal bureaucracy. The NEA’s lengthy period of existence suggests that the rate of overhead is as low as it will ever be given its organizational circumstances. It is inexcusable for an organization that simply redistributes money to lose 25% of its revenue to administrative costs . The American Film Institute operates on revenues of $21.2 million a year. The institute’s administrative costs have been held to 11.2% of their total budget , less than half of what the NEA incurs. The American Film Institute is not alone; at 10.9% Public Radio International also shares low rates of administrative overhead . Some organizations are not as prudent, nevertheless their costs do not equal those of the NEA. The Smithsonian Institute for example engages only 18.2% of its budget in administrative costs . Similar to double taxation, when money is awarded through the NEA it is exposed to the administrative costs of two organizations, those of the NEA and those of the organization it goes to. Thus, for every tax dollar distributed by the NEA anywhere from 35-45 cents of it is lost, the intent of the tax payer left unaccomplished. In in current climate American tax payers cannot be asked to shoulder these astronomical costs, and more importantly unnecessary burdens.

The results of the NEA’s granting process are geographically disturbing to congressmen and women of all affiliations. Thirty percent of the NEA’s monetary distributions go to six cities . In addition another 25 percent is granted to organizations in the state of New York alone. Leaving only 34% of the NEA’s seemingly token sized budget for the rest of the country, it becomes easier to understand claims suggesting that the NEA panders to small and defined areas of the country. On the subject of the NEA’s geographical representation Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan noted in a televised debate that, “The arts were thriving before the National Endowment for the Arts was established; they’re thriving now…come to my district, 143 other congressional districts around the country get no money directly from the National Endowment for the Arts and the arts are thriving.” Upholding the just nature of the NEA, Senator Jeffords of Vermont has said that, “Art has flourished and especially in the low-income areas of our cities. I’ve also see programs like in New York City run by the Endowment that help with therapy for kids that have had experienced traumatic events…the Endowments help make sure that those people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to participate be able to let the nation know about the duties that they can create.” In the struggle to maintain the NEA’s position proponents often note that children involved in the arts can see as much as a 59 percent improvement on SAT scores.

The NEA’s inability to fund the nation in a geographically diverse and representational way highlights something aside from the pragmatism that would suggest a large portion of Americans are not getting back what they deserve. The geographical weight shows a Federal endorsement of the belief that art should be centralized in national meccas. This is a clear statement by the federal government that art is not a service all people are equally entitled to. The implication that those people in 6 large cities and the state of NY are more entitled to federal funds than the large majority of people elsewhere is laughable. It has been said that the best proposals come from these areas, and that is why they receive the majority of grants. This is not a valid argument. Rural schools routinely under-perform and we would never argue that this demographic of students is any less deserving of funding than their suburban counterparts. It has been argued that in fact the rural parts of the country, those with limited access to the large institutional donors of the big cities need federal funding most. These are large obstacles the NEA must overcome if it wishes to exert a positive impact on American society into the future. The federal government should more closely regulate geographical distribution and either allow the NEA to become a large player in arts funding or have the agency phased out.

The NEA has become a cultural icon in the American landscape and when suggestion of its disbandment arises often the first reaction is strongly against the notion. However, often the perception is that the NEA is larger and exerts a larger influence on the arts in America than it truly does. This is to say that it is not out of reach to suggest that the private sector and the arts industry could assimilate and accept the financial responsibility of the NEA’s roughly $105 million dollar annual budget . A look at the fundraising targets of a few of the major arts organizations in the United States shows how trivial the NEA’s annual budget is when placed into perspective. The New York Times reports that The Metropolitan Museum of Art is looking to raise $300 million, the New York Public Library $430 million, the Museum of Modern Art $300-$450 million. Three of the nations larger arts organizations alone expect to generate roughly ten times the NEA’s annual budget. It is quite clear that the NEA is only dabbling in arts funding. The numbers speak for themselves and clearly show that the NEA’s influence and impact could be easily assumed by the private sector.

The NEA in its current form is a token agency of the federal government. Its budget is trivial, and used poorly. The small size of the NEA illustrates that the government has hesitated to fully support the arts. A clear consensus on whether it is the government’s responsibility to fund art in America has never been made. The public and federal government must decide whether the arts fall under the federal government’s umbrella of responsibility. If the conclusion is that the arts are a federal responsibility the NEA should be allotted at least $1 billion a year, enabling the agency to carry our arts organizations into the future operating at their fullest potential. If arts funding is not the government’s responsibility, the agency should be dismantled over the next 5 to 10 years. Either way, current ideological ambiguity that the NEA operates under cannot be accepted as a long term solution.

Ideological difference is the base of continued Republican and Democratic squabbling over the NEA. Liberals feel strongly that the federal government is responsible for subsidizing artists and art in America. Conservatives tend to believe that the constitution does not directly or implicitly dictate that arts funding should be done through the federal government. Democrats argue that the NEA funds individuals and small organizations that would otherwise wither away. The NEA is fiercely proud of their availability claiming to be only organization in the United States that will accept all monetary proposals, thus providing any and all Americans a chance to have their work funded. Republicans counter that the NEA’s concern for small individuals and organizations is false citing that only 5% of the budget goes to individuals.

In the face of continuing budget crises the White House and Republicans have looked to dismantle the NEA completely. Although, this isn’t likely it is helpful to know what compromises the Republican Party would most likely be willing to make. If required to compromise Republicans would like to continue offering tax deductibility and limit grants to only national organizations. Republicans are largely opposed to the federal government sponsoring regional and local activities, “We shouldn’t focus on trying to pick winners and losers in Vermont, winners and losers in Michigan…let’s focus on national treasures, not trying to pick local winners.” One must remember though that even this is a compromised position. Conservatives will go on to explain that our “national treasures” don’t need federal funding. The Metropolitan Opera for example, to replace its NEA annual grant of roughly $875,000, would only need to raise its ticket prices $1.50 each. This would be at the maximum a 1.2% raise in its starting ticket price of $125. Not only is this a nominal change in value, even for the few working class patrons of the opera, but for the majority of well-to-do opera patrons such a raise in ticket prices would mean absolutely nothing. Americans need not support a federal agency that spends much of its money subsidizing art venues of the wealthy in ways they hardly notice or need.

In recent years the NEA has escaped from the political spotlight. Largely due to the effects of terrorism and America’s increased international involvement, the nation’s focus on domestic arts policy has been sparing. As the United States wraps up it’s presence in Iraq the American consciousness will refocus on domestic policy. The re-emergence of a Red and Blue America and the new “American divide” will be analyzed. Republicans will emphasize that NEA funding falls primarily in Blue America. The Republican controlled legislative and executive branches will undoubtedly raise the concerns we have heard and thwarted so many times before. In the end we need to answer the hardest question of all: Should the federal government support the arts?

The federal government should never directly support the arts, especially in its current fashion. The NEA, is for political reasons, unable to support the smaller institutions that need outside assistance the most, and although the NEA’s support of larger institutions is a nice gesture, it is unnecessary. The arts organizations regularly sponsored by the NEA are often the most prestigious and expensive. The majority of American tax payers have been priced out of the events these organizations present. It is clear that the NEA’s $105 million budget is a mere dime in the arts industry. With proper care the $105 million budget could be easily replaced with private funding. If the public is demanding in its desire for Federal support the White House should issue block grants to each member of the House of Representatives. This would on a more local level equally distribute arts funding throughout the United States. More importantly it would bring the traditionally most arts objecting branch of the government into direct contact with the arts and its positive influences.

What can we, as individuals in this great country, do to resolve the issues surrounding arts funding? Create a dialogue, between your friends, family, and local representatives. Consider and discuss who should be responsible for deciding which arts organizations get funding and how those funds should be delivered. And finally after you feel comfortable with the issues make decisions. Donating to the arts is a form of self-expression, do you have the time to give support to your favorite arts organization or is this something you feel the government is best suited to do for you?

[BalletNut]

I think you've raised a number of important points about some of the issues with government funding of the arts. It seems to be a double-edged sword at times; on the one hand, "the arts" as we tend to define them can be a great source of cultural pride for this country, and helping to develop them can make the US a richer, more interesting place to live. On the other hand, government agreement or refusal to fund a specific project, particularly the more controversial ones, can be taken as either an endorsement of specific viewpoints or as discrimination against those who adhere to or oppose said viewpoints.

As far as ballet is concerned, there are many questions related to this issue that merit further discussion. I'm especially interested to hear about how ballet companies go about obtaining government funding, and how much they depend on it, as well as how the situation regarding arts funding in the US compares with the situation in other countries. What are other people's thoughts on this?

[Hans]

I do believe the government ought to support art because in my opinion, art is not an individual responsibility but a national one just like education. Some people disagree about certain aspects of the curriculum, but no one would use that as a reason for abolishing the public school system.

Clearly the NEA's budget is too small for it to have much effect; I did a project on arts funding in the US in high school and found that less than 0.05% of the government's budget goes toward the arts--and then one reads in the newspaper that the NEA is being cut further because the government is trying to balance its budget. Well, I don't think $105 million or so is causing our multi-billion-dollar deficit.

I also don't think opera and ballet companies (or anyone else) should have to schmooze with Phillip Morris to stay in business. If art were subsidized by the government, ballet companies for example might not be forced to accept cigarette money to keep their doors open.

[PetipaFan]

From the NEA website I found a list of appropriations here is the past 5 years:

2000***

$ 97,627,600

2001****

$104,769,000

2002

$115,220,000

2003*****

$115,731,000

2004******

$120,971,000

2005*******

$121,263,000

We probably are spending more for the Arts in Iraq.

[cargill]

I certianly think that goverment support for the arts is a Good Thing. However, it is only in the very recent times that so much goverment support for the arts (here and in Europe) has come from democratically elected governments. Before, government support tended to come from royal families, like the Czar, and all those German principalities. (I am sure that there are some exceptions--some of 19th century France was a democracy.) They could fund what they liked, and some of it was pretty disposable, I expect. But court or church composers and choreograhers or painters had to please a specific patron and therefore had to reach a real audience, whereas in our era, to get support, artists have to conform to certain bureaucratic standards, which really have nothing to do with art, like diversity, outreach, etc. I really can't think of one great work of art that 20th century governments have supported--of course time could prove me wrong. The best way for governments to support art, it seems to me, is to try to develop conditions where arts flourish, which, for the performing arts, means safety (who is going to go out to see a performance if it is dangerous to travel), cheap seats, lots of people (which to me means cities which are affordable), a decent education system with a strong grounding in basic arts--making sure that each student has the opportunity to learn music and play in a band, or be in a play, to use their imagination (rather than spending time learning to take tests!). I think that would be much more fruitful in developing an artistic culture than the current system of funding a few artists based on panels made up of other artists. It seems that this way the status quo (which nowadays in art circles seems to be shock, shock, and more shock) is just perpetuated.

[Ed McPherson]

I love what you guys have been saying. To echo cargill I think the educational component is very important. Its one thing to grow up and then learning that you enjoy going to the ballet, opera, or the symphony. I have friends in college that come to see me dance and never fail to say afterwards, "wow, that was cool I thought ballet would be boring." But it's another thing to grow up appreciating the arts and what they can do for you as an individual. We get so wrapped up in supporting the product that is created by professionals, I think the educational process in school is the most beneficial. For the individual producing art the process can often be the most rewarding part. And when I say that, forget about professional artists, I am talking grade school artists. When you take time and make a real effort to produce a piece of art in school that is when you reveal yourself, you cant help but be proud. It inspires self-confidence, some thing we are always looking for in our children. Aside from that, I think people are more appreciative of "professional" art when they have done their own, be it recreational or professional, work in the same medium.

I have heard AD's and ED's talk about the need for a company to grow and educate its audience. Maybe the government should take a larger part in that growth.

[Mel Johnson]

A lot of this discussion has its roots in the nature of Sovereignty and the philosophy of government. In the era of the Royal and Imperial Europe, the nation's treasure was in the custody of the sovereign. This treasure not only included the money and land rights in the nation, but the cultural patrimony as well. In the United States, the underlying idea is that the people are sovereign, and thus, the keeping of the national treasure is in their hands. They obviously can't all run it themselves, so government is instituted to do FOR the people those things which they cannot do directly for themselves. Society gives up its right to control the cultural patrimony directly in return for competent management of same by government. Otherwise, it would mean that the entire population would have the obligation to attend every, each and all cultural institutions and view the work being done. Not a bad idea, but certainly rough on the audience. In many countries the keeping of art is vested in the state, while in others, it is the business of government. In the US, with its duality of state and government in unison, the distinction is difficult to draw.

[bart]

To echo cargill I think the educational component is very important. Its one thing to grow up and then learning that you enjoy going to the ballet, opera, or the symphony. I have friends in college that come to see me dance and never fail to say afterwards, "wow, that was cool I thought ballet would be boring. ....

.... When you take time and make a real effort to produce a piece of art in school that is when you reveal yourself, you cant help but be proud. It inspires self-confidence, some thing we are always looking for in our children. Aside from that, I think people are more appreciative of "professional" art when they have done their own, be it recreational or professional, work in the same medium.

Congratulations, Ed, for taking on this topic. I especially appreciated your points above -- which show how surprising and positive the results of such simple programs as (a) encouraging attendance at high-level performances and (b) encouraging partaicipation in the act of making art. You really need BOTH (a) and (b).

I wouldn't be surprised if most of us on Ballet Talk have benefited a great deal from both kinds of programs as we were growing up. I certainly did.

Many studies have shown that students given sustainead exposure to the arts -- AND involved in programs in which they can MAKE art -- have a higher success rate in their subsequent endeavors than the average student. If your goals is productive, well-adjusted citizens -- and who wouldn't want that? -- art programs produce results. More than athletics programs, despite the much greater investment in those.

Thanks PetipaFan for those NEA budgets. Compared to $300 billion cost of all American offensive military operations since Sept. 11, or the $60 billion per annum it costs for the military occupation of Iraq, this may not seem llike much. But there's a tiny bit of hope in the fact that it IS growing.

(Statistical source: Max Rodenbeck, "The Truth about Jihad," New York Review of Books, Aug. 11, 2005.)

[Paul Parish]

Thanks, Ed, for bringing al this up, and in such a thoughtful way.

How by the way are you doing? Where are you now.

I'm no Republican, but at the moment I think DanaGioia is doing a good job a the NEA -- given current conditions, I don't know how it could be faring better. The money they're spending, at least on dance, is conservative in a way, but it's not throwing money down a rat-hole -- au contraire, it looks like they're dong some serious backing of the Martha Graham company, which 25 years ago might have looked pretty foolish but right now is looking like a very good thing -- they're wanting to present those ballets to people who've had no chance of seeing them, which not only is a good thing in itself, it keeps the company together.

Cargill, I agree with you in general, absolutely, but I'd have to say well, Concerto Barocco was the result of a government-funded good-will tour project, and that's no mean feat. Also, I'd say that Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet was a great government-sponsored project -- to my mind, it's possible to read it as anti-Stalinist, though to a stupid censor it conforms to the Pravda line. The crushing power of the state is presented as SO monstrous that it seems to me an indictment of the very comissars who approved it. The same goes for Spartacus, though it's so ugly (esp the music) that it loses some stature, despite the nobility of its theme and hte massive integrity of its composition.

[cargill]

Paul, yes to Concerto Barocco! And to Ballet Imperial, which was also done for a South American tour, wasn't it? But in a sense it was an individual sponsorship, based on an individual's taste, since Nelson Rockefeller was behind it. Balanchine didn't have to write grant proposals based on set guidelines and get funding from a panel of judges.

[Paul Parish]

Cargill, I TOTALLY agree with you there -- bureaucracts' requirements don't inspire artists at all --

even a stupid king can ask for things that give an artist something fun to do. I remember Chitresh Das, the Kathak guru who lives in the Bay Area and has taught a LOT of daners now the classical style of India, telling the story of a dance he was about to perform, a virtuoso solo created for a maharaja who loved trains - he wanted a dane that would mimis the sound of a big train coming into a station and coming to a complete stop. Das showed us how he as gong to make all the sound effects, including the echo off the I-beams, down to the escape of steam at the end as the brakes let off their pressure, and then performed the whole thing, which was about 10 minutes long --

he'd already done a thunder-storm earlier that evening, in a dance that showed the wrath of Indra (who sent a hurricane to drown a village that had abandoned his worship and gone over to Krishna -- oh! the mother's faces, the terror on the faces of the children, and hte little finger of krishna, who raised the village up on top of a new mountain and saved them) -- What a fabulous evening that was....

[sandik]

warning -- this is a pretty long response.

I’m glad you were willing to take this topic on for a paper, but I think there are a few weak places in your arguments. Some of them may boil down to a difference of opinion, but there are also some factual errors. I’m sorry not to have the time to make a proper essay out of this response -- I’ll just go through the points:

Senior Editor of “The Progress Report,” Mr. Fred E. Foldvary, makes an interesting point when noting, “Since some art is controversial, grants necessarily discriminate. As The Brooklyn Exhibit shows, if the works [controversial] are subsidized, it forces taxpayers to finance art they find revolting.”

This is certainly in the opinion camp, but this seems like a hollow argument to me -- most taxpayers are “forced” to pay for many things that they don’t agree with or approve of -- it is the nature of our system that we will rarely achieve 100% agreement on many government activites

The NEA as a branch of the, highly equal opportunity, federal government has walked a fine line in granting money to individuals and projects that include experimental work. The NEA distributes approximately 4,000 grants a year….

Furthermore, out of political self preservation the NEA should reconsider supporting artists who have a history of producing art that is offensive or based on subjects deemed generally offensive such as religion and sex. The NEA should quickly condemn artists who use their NEA granted money in the creation of highly controversial artwork so as not minimize the offense taken by others. The NEA might best serve itself if it let controversial artists utilize private sources of capital.

Since the culture wars of the 1980’s, the Endowments grants have been quite mainstream, and unless I am mistaken, with the exception of some grants to individuals in the Folk Arts categories, they have not given direct grants to individuals at all.

By the standards of most large charitable institutions the NEA is a staggeringly ineffective agency. Twenty-five cents of every tax dollar that goes to the National Endowment for the Arts is lost in bureaucratic overhead. The NEA as an established agency is fully entrenched in the federal bureaucracy.

This feels like a false comparison, though, since the reporting and paperwork requirements for federal agencies put those of private agencies to shame. It would be more interesting to compare the Endowment with another federal program or department.

The NEA has become a cultural icon in the American landscape and when suggestion of its disbandment arises often the first reaction is strongly against the notion. However, often the perception is that the NEA is larger and exerts a larger influence on the arts in America than it truly does. This is to say that it is not out of reach to suggest that the private sector and the arts industry could assimilate and accept the financial responsibility of the NEA’s roughly $105 million dollar annual budget.

It might be possible for arts organizations to replace the base dollar amount of the NEA funds, but that doesn’t really reflect the value of an NEA grant in their overall financial health. For many groups, the NEA grant is like seed money -- a tool that they can use to leverage other support. Aside from issues of matching grants, the fact that a group has Endowment support is like a seal of approval for some other private grantors -- it implies a level of stability and quality that is otherwise difficult to prove.

For a more concrete example of the effects that public money has had on the development of the dance community you might want to look into the history of the Dance Touring Program. This was one of the first NEA programs, and ran from the early 1970’s until the mid-80’s. It was formulated in response to a Ford Foundation study of dance in the 1960’s (part of the same initiative that got the FF to underwrite SAB audition tours and scholarships) and was designed to do two basic things -- get more dance out into communities across the country that didn’t have access to much high-quality work, and to get dance companies and dancers more actual performances. In general, it worked as a partnership program -- the NEA money underwrote a potion of the transportation and presenting costs, making it much easier for presenters around the country to take a chance on dance. Because it was organized on a national level, it made scheduling tours easier, encouraging cooperation between presenters to create block bookings. And because the Endowment insisted that the companies include an educational component in their residencies (classes, lecture-demonstrations, open rehearsals) it increased the access that these communities had to the visiting artists -- they weren’t just coming into town to perform and then leaving right away.

(personal anecdote -- this often lead to companies participating in extended residencies -- I wound up studying with the Nikolais company for a month in Portland OR while they were in residence there in the mid-70’s, and spent big chunks of time with artists from the Limon company, Repertory Dance Theater, the Graham company, and several others)

I apologize for going on about the DTP, but (you can probably tell) I’ve been doing research on it, and its affect on the development of dance outside of NYC, and I think it’s a counterexample for some of the objections you’ve raised to the NEA.

[Ed McPherson]

sandik-

It means a lot to me that you took the time to really get into this! It’s the type of discussion that can only be good.

----

you are right in recent years individual grants have been restricted, almost eliminated.

http://www.aau.edu/budget/04IntSumm.html

Bill language is once again recommended under Title III--General Provisions, retaining provisions in last year's bill regarding restrictions on individual grants, subgranting, and seasonal support (Sec. 309);

It is a false comparison, that of private and public business because they are subject to different rules, if you will. But that was sort of part of one of the points I was trying to make. Private business tends to be more efficient. In the spirit of limited government we have traditionally only given the federal government responsibility over the aspects of life we feel the private sector would deny. It is sort of a fundamental thing, whether you believe in a larger or smaller sized government. I dont think the arts would wither away without federal funding so I don’t see a reason for the inefficiency, I dont think it serves the country best.

You are completely right, federal money does act as a seed. This is a red flag to me. I see it as the mild yet disconcerting encroachment of a larger federal government. The NEA puts their stamp of approval on an organization and all of a sudden private money is a whole lot easier to get; and its not that it is only easier to get. This means that if you dont have the stamp of approval it is that much harder to get funding. This opens an avenue for manipulation, and I am not saying this has happened in any serious way. But, it means if an administration wanted to push one perspective they could to some degree do it by giving grants to organizations that fit in with their agenda. Private money would follow; the NEA has a lot of rapport. All the art on the other side of the federal agenda would be undercut, because funding would be that much harder to get, given the dominance NEA approval affords. But to me that is the small part of it.

When the government acts as a seal of approval it means that private organizations don’t have to do the research themselves, we've outsource all the hard, and IMHO most rewarding work, to the government. Private organizations can go through a list of NEA sponsored organizations and pick one that looks good to them, who knows if they will become actively engaged in the organization, or just send a check.. If the NEA didn’t have this type of influence it would force the private sector to find the arts organizations they donate to on their own. I think it would inspire a lot more interaction between arts and non-arts organizations looking for organizations to donate to.

Maybe its a trite thought, but I think the government should spend its time and money focusing on the larger issues that only the government is in a position to remedy. I dont agree with Bush's plan for social security reform but I think political time and money would be best used there, issues of mandatory entitlement spending. There has been a lot of talk about rising health care costs and the rising cost of living for people over the age of 65. If that demographic decides they are too financially stressed to give to their local arts organizations I think we would be in quite a bit more trouble. If we must have the NEA why not promote growth within the audience instead of the performer?

[dirac]

sandik writes:

Since the culture wars of the 1980’s, the Endowments grants have been quite mainstream, and unless I am mistaken, with the exception of some grants to individuals in the Folk Arts categories, they have not given direct grants to individuals at all.

In the late sixties, to give only one example, Jerome Robbins’ experimental American Theater Laboratory put on an entire season with NEA funding alone. That kind of operational funding was an important part of the NEA’s contribution to the health of American arts in the past. The loss of it has been a serious one, and private philanthropic funding has not made up the difference.