On NPR this morning is a short piece pondering the fates of the NEA and NEH under the second Trump administration. It is optimistic, though given the Wall Street Journal article by Musk and Ramaswamy this morning (they obviously didn’t write it – but it carries their names), which, in looking at things to cut, refers to the federal funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting among other agencies, I cannot bring myself to share in the optimism.
The reporter gives two reasons that the Endowments might be spared being cut.
The first is that NEA funding is spread widely (which means, necessarily, thinly) across the country. As I noted in a recent Substack post, this might help keep some congressional support. But it is a weak argument. The NPR reporter cites things like after-school music programs, or arts therapy through the Veterans Administration, and these are certainly nice things, but you don’t need a federal arts agency to do them – the states, and other government departments can surely run such programs. In addition, the thrust of Musk and Ramaswamy’s argument, such as it is (I’m not saying they are correct, at all) is that the executive branch has the power to kill programs and agencies without the blessing of Congress. So the fact that some NEA money goes to the 8th congressional district of pick-your-state is not going to matter all that much. If Trump is serious about the amount he and his appointees want to cut spending, there’s trouble ahead.
The second “argument” given, using the term very loosely, comes from the Americans for the Arts, whose spokesperson explains “economic impact” in terms of when people go to a show, they might also go for a drink, and hire a babysitter. I’ve made enough posts on this blog to link to them all – here is a relatively calm one – but, folks, this is, respectfully, daft. It is not an argument to have a federal arts funding agency that people, when they go off to see Cats, hire a sitter. Hiring a sitter is a cost. A cost of enjoying the arts. It would be like if Americans for the Cars said the federal government ought to subsidize the auto industry because people often have fender-benders which means they need to take their car to the body shop. This lobby group has persisted with this nonsense for decades, and they ought to be shunned – do not listen to them.
And so … honestly I am not optimistic. Trump seems as serious as he can be (I know, I know) about cutting government, his minions are already, in print, talking about cutting the CPB, and the arguments being brought up to defend the NEA are tired. Little grants everywhere, and economically illiterate talk about going for a drink after the show whilst you have a sitter at home, I just don’t see as cutting it. Your babysitter won’t save you.
What might just be crazy enough to work would be to talk about what seems to be missing entirely from the NPR story: art. That it matters, and a federal agency to preserve the best of our cultural heritage, and to foster the creation of the new, matters in some significant way to what is left of our civilization. I even wrote a book about it.
I guess we will soon see.
