Plans to Dismantle the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities
In a move many feared was coming, the Trump administration has revealed a proposal to cutting the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in its federal budget plan. Trump is the beginning president to do so, according to a report by theNew York Times.
The elimination of both agencies would total a mere $300 million out of the allotted $1.1 trillion overall annual discretionary spending—a small-scale amount that would still take a serious impact on cultural production, and the artists, musicians, writers, and scholars who rely on it.
In improver to eradicating the NEA and NEH, President Trump's outline also proposes to abolish the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a major source of funding for PBS and National Public Radio stations, likewise as the Woodrow Wilson International Heart for Scholars.
Rumors of the proposed cuts began to bladder in January, and in Feb, Senator Kristen Gillibrand teamed upwardly with 24 U.Southward. senators to write a letter to the president encouraging him to keep funding the NEA and NEH, calling them the "drivers of innovation and economical prosperity."
Brooke Seipel of theHill wrote that the official announcement was apparently met with "a mix of sadness and surprise" when NEA Chairwoman Jane Chu notified her staffers Wednesday forenoon.
"We are greatly saddened to learn of this proposal for emptying, equally NEH has made significant contributions to the public good," NEH chairman William D. Adams said in a statement yesterday.
How soon the changes will be implemented is yet to be seen. The federal upkeep falls under the purview of Congress, while upkeep proposals simply reflect the president's priorities.
Though former Republican President Ronald Reagan toyed with the idea, he faced a Democratic bulk in Congress—different today, when Republicans take command of both houses of Congress and the White House.
According to the Times, Brian Ferriso, the president of the Association of Fine art Museum Directors, said, "I'm sort of dumbstruck. I'm hopeful that Congress volition accept the time to say, 'Hey, wait a second. We demand these cultural elements to our gild.'"
The NEA and NEH were created in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Human activity, stating that "it is necessary and appropriate for the Federal Government to help create and sustain not only a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination, and enquiry only too the cloth conditions facilitating the release of this artistic talent."
UPDATE: Jane Chu, head of the NEA, has released the post-obit statement:
Today we learned that the president's FY 2018 budget blueprint proposes the emptying of the National Endowment for the Arts. Nosotros are disappointed because we see our funding actively making a difference with individuals of all ages in thousands of communities, large, small-scale, urban and rural, and in every Congressional District in the nation.
We understand that the president's upkeep request is a first footstep in a very long upkeep process; as part of that procedure we are working with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to set information they have requested. At this fourth dimension, the NEA continues to operate as usual and will exercise so until a new budget is enacted by Congress.
Nosotros wait this news to be an active topic of give-and-take among individuals and organizations that advocate for the arts. Equally a federal authorities bureau, the NEA cannot engage in advocacy, either direct or indirectly. We will, yet, continue our practice of educating about the NEA's vital part in serving our nation's communities.
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Source: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/trump-proposes-eliminating-national-endowment-arts-893744
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