A new proposed budget from the Trump administration seeks to eliminate four independent cultural agencies – the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
In the same budget, the Trump administration has proposed a $54 billion increase in defense spending.
Of course, in these tough economic times, it would make sense to cut corners by getting rid of unnecessary agencies that are sucking the government dry, right?
It would, except the fact that the arts and humanities agencies the president is trying to eliminate represent tiny fractions of the government’s total budget. According to The Washington Post, with the $54 billion President Trump would like to add to defense spending, the government could fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for 121 years. To add even more perspective, according to Politico, taxpayers are saddled with an approximately $3 million tab each time President Trump vacations at his sprawling Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. (He has already visited said estate four times this year alone).
Personally, I’d rather have my tax dollars finance libraries for inner-city kids and Elmo on “Sesame Street” but maybe that’s just me.
Full disclosure, I am no artist.
My painting skills are lacking despite my best efforts. But I can roam the halls of a museum any day of the week, transfixed by the works of those much more talented than I.
I am not an actress, but a powerful monologue can shake me to my core.
I love musicals, but you’ll find me belting out show tunes in my car rather than on a stage.
I may not have been born artistically-inclined but I still understand the profound importance of the arts. You don’t have to be Meryl Streep, Misty Copeland, or Lin-Manuel Miranda to appreciate the impact the arts have on our cultural fabric. Art is an outlet for expression, a historian of the American way of life, and, for some, the only way to escape the harsh realities of poverty, violence, and trauma.
Mr. President, I implore you – do not stifle America’s future thinkers, creators, performers and dreamers in favor of building bigger bombs to wreak more havoc. The next F. Scott Fitzgerald or Maya Angelou could be sitting in a Midwestern library as we speak. The next Margaret Keane could pick up a paintbrush for the first time after visiting the National Gallery of Art. The next Arthur Miller could attend a workshop at his local theater tomorrow. We’ll never know what masterpieces will never see the light of day if arts and humanities programs are destroyed. Ultimately, without art, our descendants will not have much to remember us by.
“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off of our souls.” – Pablo Picasso.