Arts and the Stimulus Package

An economic stimulus package passed by congress last week included an extra 50 million dollars allotted for the National Endowment of the Arts. Good news for the American art community? Not so fast. As Tyler Green's Modern Art Notes suggested today, 50 million is small beans when compared to what other arts-based organizations and institutions are allotted and spend on an annual basis.

How silly is $50 million? In San Diego alone, the two headline arts institutions, the San Diego Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, have between them cut about 30 jobs. That represents the loss of around $2 million in annual salary (and benefits) at just two art museums in just one medium-sized city. If I were to total up the cutbacks at San Diego's other cultural institutions […] I could probably find close to $50 million in cultural-spending cutbacks in just San Diego, America's 17th largest metropolitan area. Christopher Knight has reported that 100,000 non-profit arts groups around America sustain six million jobs.

How small is the NEA's $145 million annual appropriation? The National Gallery of Art and the Kennedy Center receive more federal dollars through the normal federal budgeting process than the NEA does. The NEA is supposed the be the primary arts protagonist for the American people, yet a single arts philanthropy, the J. Paul Getty Trust, spent 50 percent more than the NEA did in the Getty's most recently reported year. (Imagine if one charitable foundation spent more than the federal government does on environmental research. It would rightly be a national embarrassment.)

Green goes onto suggest that perhaps the NEA should be given up on entirely. When private charitable art foundations are spending an exuberant amount of more money on the arts, the NEA continues to lose effectiveness and its purpose for existing—especially in the eyes of lawmakers in Capitol Hill. As a replacement, Green believes that the American arts community should take a more active role in the Washington think tank culture. By investing, supporting and working with major policy pushers such as the Center for American Progress, federal support of culture could increase.

Smart arts thinkers would have the opportunity to be involved in policy debates, to develop new ideas about how government should be involved in the arts (and not just in one little agency, but across the federal apparatus).

Joining the Washington policy-making set wouldn't result in immediate, FY 2010 policy changes, but over time it would lead to new ideas and new ways that the federal government could engage with and support the nation's cultural vitality. Just as importantly: It would burrow cultural thinkers and backers into the culture of Washington influence, building a baseline of support for the arts amongst policy-makers who work in a range of fields

I agree with Green’s suggestion. As a former intern to CAP, it seemed that there was a desire to include more arts and culture-based events and policy inclusion but a lack of knowledge and know how. However, I wonder, especially in these problem-ridden times in our country (sinking economy, war in Iraq, etc) if such think tanks would be willing to prioritize and push arts and culture based policies. Nevertheless, it is a place to start and a relationship between left-leaning think tanks and arts philanthropists seems long overdue to take place.

Read the post in its entirety at HERE