The recent release of a proposed federal budget for the 2018 fiscal year caused consternation and concern among many Alaskans, certainly to those who support artistic and cultural activity. Rumors had swirled since the fall that the new administration might eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), among other draconian cuts, but there were reasons to hope that this undesirable outcome wouldn’t come to pass. When the so-called “skinny budget” was released by the Office of Management &Budget (OMB) the hope that defunding wouldn’t even be proposed disappeared. In its place now springs hope and commitment to ensuring that Congress doesn’t act on the ill-advised proposals to eliminate the NEA, along with the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Institute of Library &Museum Services.
The United States Constitution is unambiguous in assigning legal responsibility to create a budget and appropriate money to pay for the federal government: Article I, Section 8, sets Powers of Congress to include laying and collecting taxes, borrowing money, and providing for the nation’s general welfare. Whatever has been proposed by the administration, Congress will have the final say about whether specific agencies and programs are funded.
Alaskans are fortunate that Senator Lisa Murkowski chairs the subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee that oversees the NEA and the other cultural agencies that have misguidedly been targeted for elimination. The aggregate amount for all these entities is de minimis in the context of the overall federal budget, and their wholesale elimination would not make any meaningful difference in shrinking the deficit and taking control over the national debt. This is the starting point from which any consideration of eliminating the NEA must begin.
More importantly, the approximately $148 million allocated for the NEA in the current fiscal year yields an astronomically large return on investment of these federal dollars. Because of a policy in place since the 1990s, 40 percent of the total sum allocated to the NEA by Congress must be passed through to state and regional arts agencies; the lion’s share of this goes to the states. The federal law that established the NEA has since its inception mandated a dollar-for-dollar match by states, and this has a tremendous leveraging effect because it generates at least as much money from each jurisdiction as Congress spends. These aggregated state and federal government funds are in turn matched by local governments, individual donors, and private foundations. Ultimately, many more resources are available for arts, and it all begins with the seed money from the NEA. If only other federal programs worked this well in leveraging state and non-governmental sources of funding, we would live in a different world.
The response to the possible elimination of the NEA has been varied, with some positive, encouraging comments, and other negative, unconvincing statements. Senator Murkowski believes in the NEA and the importance of arts and culture in the life of our nation. Other conservative commentators have been varied in their assessments: George Will, generally shrewd at assessing public policy, wrote a piece that embraced the proposed elimination plan, but which entirely failed to assess the reality of how NEA money is actually expended. He ignored the leveraging effect, one of the strongest arguments in support of funding the NEA. While he acknowledged that the effort to eliminate the NEA was futile, he offered little in the way of constructive criticism.
Mike Huckabee, the very conservative former Governor of Arkansas who sought the presidency last year, has come out in strong opposition to eliminating the NEA. Governor Huckabee wisely recognizes that access to artistic opportunity is not something that can be taken for granted, and that for disadvantaged Americans, particularly youth in rural parts of the country, the support provided by the NEA, especially through its partnerships with the states, provides access to arts that would almost certainly not exist but for the agency and its partners.
As the debate on the future of the NEA continues, those who support it must remember to articulate the fiscally prudent benefits of the leveraging effect of the 40 percent allocation. At the same time, we need to tell the stories of how the arts cause students to learn and behave better, heal servicemen’s traumatic injuries sustained in defense of our nation and infuse billions of dollars of economic activity into every corner of the nation. If we do this, the NEA will survive and continue to make all Americans’ lives better now and in the future.
• Ben Brown is a lifelong Alaskan and Juneau resident, and serves as chairman for the Alaska State Council on the Arts.
