NEA Funding Update
Last Thursday, the NEA funding increases survived three hostile amendments in the House and ultimately made it through to approval unscathed. The most hostile of the amendments, offered by Doub Lamborn (R-CO), would have eliminated funding for the NEA, and was defeated 97-335. Of those 97 yes votes, 3 were Democrats: Gene Taylor of Mississippi, Ike Skelton of Missouri, and Jim Matheson of Utah. The Republicans were split roughly 50/50, with 94 ayes and 104 nays. The closest vote was for the Bishop amendment to move $31.6 Million from the NEA to the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, National Parks, and the Forest Service. The 156-270 defeat was a 114 vote margin (i.e. 57 people changing their vote from nay to aye would have resulted in a tie.).
Interestingly, the Bishop amendment was the first offered. The Brown-Waite amendment to remove the NEA increase outright was offered and defeated by a wider margin (137-285) the following day. The Lamborn amendment was the second-to-last amendment offered, at a point when one imagines that Lamborn knew it had no chance of passage, which leads me to suspect that it was simple posturing rather than a serious threat. NEA support seems strong, overall, and I am encouraged for the bill’s prospects in the Senate. Furthermore, this increase has gotten relatively little media coverage, which probably means that the media doesn’t consider it a controversial or otherwise interesting issue. Given the extent to which the NEA has historically served as a proxy for conservative frustrations with the government, that the nation seems to see this funding increase as routine and unremarkable is probably a good sign for those of us who support a robust NEA.
Seth, you can be a democrat and be conservative. THat said, Lieberman is to many of us a huge disappointment, and not just for his pro-war stance, as Ian astutely indicated. He actively worked against most Democratic Party initiatives while he was still a Democrat. He is all about himself, which is why he ran as an independent (and was elected primarily by Republicans in CT, not Democrats) even after the voters had spoken in the primary. He was all lovey-dovey with Cheney when he was running for VP in 2000, but is hardly that way with his own (former) party. Even worse is his hypocrisy; he was quick to condemn Clinton on the Senate floor for lying about a blowjob (or “position BJ” as Borat would say), yet can’t bring himself to condemn Bush’s administration for…anything.
Seth, I don’t want to get out too far on this sidetrack, but I think what pisses most liberals off about Lieberman is not merely his war stance but also his disingenuousness (especially in recent years) about almost everything. You freely admit that you didn’t pay much attention to the Senate race last year, but if you had, I promise you you would have seen this. As a very small example, he complained to anyone who would listen that Lamont’s team had deliberately sabotaged his website just before the primary, but the FBI concluded afterwards that it was his own campaign’s negligence that led to the site problems (by not buying enough bandwidth). This kind of thing was rampant throughout the campaign–whenever he had a problem, it was always someone else’s fault, including yours and mine if that was a convenient answer for him. It’s ironic that someone who made a platform out of calling out “petty political partisanship” turned out to be pretty damn petty himself.
The reports of the NEA’s almost-death have been greatly exaggerated. Attempts are made regularly to zero-fund it via the occasional amendment but they’re never anything more than grandstanding. Not once has even a majority of Republicans voted in such an amendment’s favor. Some shouters are louder than others, a la Jesse Helms, and make it seem as if there’s a danger – but even in Helms’ heyday, when anti-NEA sentiment was at it’s peak on the right, a majority of Republicans voted to increase funding. None have ever had the slimmest chance of passage. Might as well offer an amendment declaring the sky not blue. Whatever may be ranted about on Capitol Hill, at the end of the day the American public likes the NEA. It’s one of those “fire up the base in the local district” issues that only gets people heated up and leads to yet another one of those annoying urban myth “pass it on” emails that circulate forever, like the ones about the Big Bad Gubmint taking Elmo away, Tommy Hilfiger being a racist, and the danger of having one’s kidneys stolen when vacationing in tropical climates.
On the municipal level, arts funding comes and goes, sure – but federally, good luck with that crusade.
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In other news, gotta speak up on another thing I’m sure I’m on the unpopular side of here: Lieberman-bashing. As a resident of CT until 2004 (yes, I know – I’ve lived in NYC since ’96, but it took me a few years to change my registration, okay?) I have to say a couple of things on his behalf – well, one thing really, but I’m sure I’ll be very long-winded about it: unless you’re a one-issue (the war) voter, the idea that Joe Lieberman is “to the right of most right-wing Republicans” is complete and utter horsecrap, and even the most cursory glance at his voting record would show that.
According to the most recent National Journal rankings, Joe Lieberman ranks significantly to the left of every single Republican on every issue except foreign policy – and even in that regard, in his entire senate career he has only managed to out-“right” a whopping total of two Republicans. And those two were Lincoln Chaffee and Arlen Specter, no less – the former a Republican in name only because he was asked to fill a vacant Republican seat when his father passed away, then proceeded to vote with the Dems on practically everything, and admitted that he didn’t even vote for George W.
So, in case anyone was confused by David’s last sentence – which was a little confusing as it began in the present tense (has) and ended in the past (had) tense… Joe Lieberman has never been to the right of Rick Santorum on any issue. And as far as having a more conservative one than they currently have in PA… no, they don’t. He may be to the right of Specter on the war – but overall, he’s not. Not even close. In the other two broad categories the National Journal tracks – social and economic – he ranked 14th and 20th among Democrats for “rightward” lean. Putting him squarely on the
Left side of Moderate.
For those that think the National Journal is a Republican conspiracy, let’s look at his political supporters: The positive ratings – many 100% – and endorsements he’s picked up read like a laundry list of FOX News targets: Planned Parenthood, NARAL, The Humane Society, ASPCA, National Farmer’s Union, US Chamber of Commerce, ACLU, NAACP, Human Rights Campaign, National Education Association, Children’s Defense Fund, NOW, US-PIRG, The Brady Campaign, AFL-CIO, People For The American Way, AARP… meanwhile, the groups that have given him low ranks, many 0% or “F” grades, are the punching bags of the left: The NRA, the John Birch Society, the Christian Coalition, the Family Research Council, the American Conservative Union…
I could go on all day with those lists. Most of his usual endorsers continued to endorse him over Lamont, even, or just stayed out of it.
Does this mean I would have voted for Lieberman in ’04 had I still been a CT-ite? I dunno. As a (finally) newly minted official New Yorker I didn’t pay much attention to Lamont’s issue stands to know the difference between them on anything but the war. I know my parents – classic New England Democrats to the core – went with Lieberman, and they’re both against the war. And not idiots, as far as I can tell. I can’t say I’d have voted the same – like I said, I dunno. I’m probably a little more liberal than they are (except on that pesky NEA issue…) so maybe, maybe not. But I do find that most liberals who aren’t from CT – and many who are – only know one thing about him, only know his stand on one issue: Iraq. And if that’s your only voting issue, or the deal-breaker issue, so be it. Debate his stance on that issue. But to paint the man as being something he’s not just is to re-create him out of nearly whole cloth. His votes are a matter of public record. Don’t distort his very liberal record on every other issue with grand, inaccurate memetic statements like “to the right of most right-wing Republicans” and “he’s really a conservative, war-monging, Bush-loving Republican” and such.
He’s no Zell Miller, is all I’m saying.
Okay, that’s all I have to say about that. And I’m a Democrat who would have voted for the Lamborn amendment, personally, based on what I know of it. Which puts me to the right of Joe Lieberman, Chris Shays, and most Republicans. But I’m still a Democrat. Confusing, I know.
Herb, I don’t disagree with anything that you say about the NEA’s funding priorities but I feel that the jump in logic that is necessary to equate this funding increase with an endorsement of those priorities is rather large and really quite short-sighted. You’re overlooking several things, namely:
1) The NEA’s funding priorities and vision are not determined by Congress but rather by the head of the NEA, who is a Presidential appointee (in this case, Dana Gioia). So the changes you are looking for are really only possible–as with so many things–with the election of a new President, one who hopefully will be a greater friend to the arts than past administrations. In the meantime, the best we can hope for from Congress is an increase in funding, which is exactly what they’re giving us.
2) You are taking the budget increase as an endorsement of the changes in recent decades in the way that NEA funds organizations. I disagree. I think the increase is an endorsement of the arts and artists in general. I very much doubt that more than a handful of Congressmen and -women give a crap about the arts in more than a very vague sense. It’s just one of dozens upon dozens of government agencies that must be funded, and really should be routine in the grand scheme of things. However, it has not been in the past because of a group of conservatives who tried to use it as a pawn in their culture war, and almost succeeded in killing it entirely. The fact that it is no longer a news story is, as Galen says, a good thing in the current political environment.
3) Remember that budget decisions like this are precedent-setting. The NEA is one of the cheapest government agencies out there, and the $160 million or so that is on the table is ridiculously insignificant pocket change to the US Government. Currently, the city of New York spends more on the arts in a single locality than the federal government does on an entire nation of 300 million people. So it is kind of ridiculous that we have to fight this hard to get the paltry level of support that we do. In the midst of the controversies of the last decade, the NEA budget was cut by 40%, and it has taken until now–11 years later–for it to even come close to its former level. That’s why #2 is so important–for the NEA to become a real force in arts funding and be able to support organizations in the way that it used to, it needs money. And the only way it’s going to get more money is if arts funding is a non-controversial issue. Then, once the precedent has been set at a new, more generous level, a new NEA director can start branching out more and redirecting priorities away from established (and often not American) “masterpieces” and more towards new and genuinely grassroots art as it did in the past.
You need to take a long-term view with these things. Until this year, it was a victory if the NEA wasn’t eliminated entirely by the Republican Congress. It’s worth noting that one of the current candidates for President on their side, Tom Tancredo, was the author of an amendment similar to fellow Coloradoan Lamborn’s a couple of years ago that would have defunded NEA completely. Let’s hope he doesn’t get very far.
Galen –
If the current NEA were providing general operating support for a wide range of organizations including those which foster and support the creation of new work as part of their mission, I might agree with you. But by and large few of these organizations receive NEA support any longer. Increasingly, the Endowment supports major arts institutions like orchestras and museums and grassroots community organizations. I’m not begrudging support for these groups, for the most part they do good work. & every organization needs as much funding as they can get from as many different sources as they can get it from. However, the core mission of most organizations currently supported by the NEA is not to foster the creation of new works by professional artists and so most of these organizations don’t do very much of that.
There are dozens of alternative spaces, artist-run organizations, etc most with budgets between $50,000 and $500,000 (that is, organizations for which a grant from the NEA would provide a substantial percentage of the annual budget) that used to regularly receive NEA support for producing and presenting new and recent works by composers, visual artists, playwrights, etc. For the most part, these organizations have found sources to replace the NEA funds they no longer receive, and some have grown in the last 10-15 years, but the imprimatur of federal support can trigger matching funds from foundations, corporations and individuals who might not otherwise support such an organization. Without NEA funding, it’s more of a struggle for these organizations to continue to serve their missions.
There used to be NEA fellowship programs that supported artists directly in virtually every genre and medium. Now there are only awards to acknowledged masters in jazz and folk arts and fellowships for writers. &, not surprisingly, the writers who are getting support are stylistically conservative. Again, I’m not begrudging these fellowships, I’m mourning the loss of a wider range of fellowship opportunities for artists in other fields and, in jazz and folk arts, for artists in mid-career.
Speaking of support for the literary arts, the NEA recently sent out a press release for what is described as the largest federally supported literary program in the US since the WPA writers’ projects during the Depression. This program provides promotional support for cities that want to attract a lot of their residents to read the same book.
The NEA’s current policies and programs really do not do much to foster the creation of adventurous new works. Like people, organizations respond to positive stimuli. If they aren’t being rewarded for wanting to present new works, most of them won’t bother.
Accepting this lack of support for contemporary arts and hoping that NEA funds will free up other money for commissioning new works or producing new performances of recent works, enables the NEA to continue to ignore work by living artists. I’m disappointed to read that a contributing editor for a site dedicated to new music, would support such a position.
Nothing to be proud of vis a vis Lieberman. I don’t know who I’m more disappointed in: Lieberman, for proving every day that he’s really a conservative, war-monging, Bush-loving Republican determined to stick it to the Democrats at every opportunity, or Harry Reid, for not jettisoning Lieberman as head of an important committee in the Senate. Let’s face reality already—CT actually has a more conservative Senator than we have in PA, and we’ve had Santorum!
Hey, I’m proud of my CT reps. Even Shays, the sole Republican, spoke out in favor of the NEA, and they all voted for this HR 2643.
I wish I could be this proud of Lieberman, who is to the right of most right-wing Republicans…
Herb– I take your point, and largely I agree. But if we imagine a world with a large, wealthy NEA that only provides general operating support rather than more direct funding to specific projects, and which carefully avoids even the appearance of funding potentially controversial projects, there’s still a lot of worthwhile art that benefits, and those public funds can be used to replace private funds which can be redirected to the more controversial work. That’s a compromise I’m willing to live with.
“Given the extent to which the NEA has historically served as a proxy for conservative frustrations with the government, that the nation seems to see this funding increase as routine and unremarkable is probably a good sign for those of us who support a robust NEA.”
Given that the NEA has been re-structured so that it supports fewer and fewer programs and organizations that produce, sponsor, commission or otherwise foster creations by contemporary or otherwise “controversial” artists, that there are still legislators who feel it necessary to use the NEA as a convenient political target is probably a very bad sign for those of us who support a robust NEA.
Those politicians who have done their homework will know that the arts and culture sector is a worthy recipient of government funding, since tight fiscal requirements for funding of organizations in countries such as Canada guarantee efficient spending of those funds. In addition, the arts and culture sector is growing at a faster rate than the economy as a whole. Here is a link to a Canadian study on growth rates of the sector:
http://www.hillstrategies.com/resources_details.php?resUID=1000160
Gene Taylor is my representative. He occasionally shows up at my work, perhaps next time I should ask him about the Lamborn amendment and why he voted for it.