The National Endowment for the Arts was created in 1965 to invest in culture much the way the country had invested in science. Congress has decreased its budget in recent years from $167.5 million in 2010 to $148 million in 2016.
WASHINGTON — Arts groups across the country are preparing to battle President Trump to keep intact the National Endowment for the Arts and the funding it provides to state and local groups.
Americans for the Arts is mobilizing some 5,000 local councils, agencies and funders and 300,000 “citizen activists” to flood members of Congress with calls, sign a petition to the White House and generally get the message out about the importance of the arts and federally funding them as Trump finalizes his budget in the coming weeks.
Americans for the Arts President Robert Lynch, who has also reached out to the White House himself, says he wants Trump and his team to know federal support for the arts creates jobs and stimulates economic growth, “the very things that the president is saying he wants to see […]
I am a creative artist—a fiction author—who has never received a damn thing from the National Endowment of the Arts, nor should I have. But they DO keep alive art and music and theater and films that truly educate and uplift the young, which is why it’s there in the first place. But now the learning—the beauty—the importance of the arts will be lost to our children, unlike EVERY other developed country in the world. Just one MORE reason I loathe our current Orange Divider and every other GOP who blindly and stupidly agrees with him on everything.