Gutknecht, Kennedy and Kline vote to eliminate the NEA

[hermetic]

On March 17, 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives began debate on the FY 2006 budget resolution. One broad proposal that was brought up -- and overwhelmingly voted down - included nonbinding language calling for the elimination of funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and three other programs. (A similar maneuver is attempted nearly every year, and always fails). The vote this year was 102 in favor and 320 opposed.
VOTED TO ELIMINATE THE NEA, PBS, and OTHER PROGRAMS by voting "Aye":

Rep. Gil Gutknecht, District 1, southern Minnesota
Rep. Mark Kennedy, District 6, St. Cloud and northern Twin Cities suburbs to Stillwater
Rep. John Kline, District 2, southern suburbs, Burnsville to Redwing to Faribault to Waconia

[loveable liberal]

1. Be kind to these men...

Not everyone can be thinkers. The world needs blind followers too...

[TalkingDog]

2. As a working artist I think the NEA should be eliminated too.

Year after year the money goes to the same groups, the same artists all living in major cities. All of the work produced by these artists is "on the cutting edge". Anyone who applies for funds to explore regional and local culture, be it music, dance or craft is disregarded as backward and uneducated.

A sort of cultural colonialism takes place; led by the same people who fund the "cutting edge". Your work or studies MUST conform to what WE decide is acceptable or you get no funding.

If SmallTown USA wants to fund bluegrass music, they shouldn't be forced to listen to an imported symphony just because the NEA won't fund bluegrass. Mr. SmallTown's tax dollars go to fund the NEA just like Mr. BigTown's.

Karen Findley got untold thousands of NEA dollars to smear chocolate all over her naked body and say it represented the shit women have been smeared with over the centuries.....Stupid Much?

No Ms. Findley, you are naked and you are smeared with chocolate. You are not a symbol of suffering. You my sweet, are a bon-bon. Don't imply that I'm stupid by putting a pig in a dress and calling her a pretty girl. Just call it what it is, a pig in a dress and you get lots of my tax dollars and Godivas for life.

/rant off

[stopbush]

3. Well, I disagree on many levels.

But first - I'm surprised anyone is voting to eliminate the NEA these days. The NEA has become a favorite with the RW! They finally discovered that building arts venues is good for their districts. In fact, every $1 in government sponsorship generates $11 in ancillary income. That's about the best return on investment one can imagine. There was a piece on this RW embrace of the "evil" NEA on 60 Minutes a few years back.

Where I disagree with you is that the money given to the NEA is such a small amount as to be insignificant to the Fed budget. Eliminating it saves nothing. It's a red herring that has lost the impetus of a RW intellectual wrapping.

And, as far as those grants go, I take almost the opposite view. If push comes to shove, I would prefer that the NEA use its money to help keep alive the major arts institutions in the country rather than funding some project exploring the sensitivity of tempura paints. But in truth, the major arts institutions are the ones who need the NEA money the least. They are humming with development departments that have them tapped into major corporate and individual donors. Anything they get from the NEA is insignificant to their mega-budgets.

So at the end of the day, the NEA does their best work in supporting the small, yet-to-be-discovered talent out there. Funding hundreds of individual artists $5M at a time is probably a better strategy than handing $500M over to one group. Do they default to the "cutting edge" artists all the time? No, but it's easy to see why people get that impression as the most out-there art is the stuff that gets people all riled up.

Disclosure: I work as the Development Director for a small-budget orchestra (under $2MM annual budget). We have never got a cent from the NEA, though we keep trying. A grant would certainly be helpful, but we exist without the support of the NEA. One would think we'd be a natural for a grant - a young orchestra in a fast-growing metro area with a tremendous outreach program aimed at our growing at-risk community, but it's never happened.

Just my 2¢.

[loveable liberal]

4. incorrect.

Good thing you "as a working artist" are not judge and jury as to who gets NEA grants. otherwise we'd all be subjected to bluegrass, eh? Absolutely no 'smalltown' artists got nea grants? I find that hard to believe. You're making sweeping generalizations not only about 'artists' but also what it means to be 'smalltown'. You are certainly welcome to your opinion. My opinion is that I'd rather get poked with a sharp stick than listen to bluegrass music. Doesn't mean that bluegrass shouldnt be funded however. As a 'working artist' I would expect you'd appreciate all art so I found that a little odd...

[hermetic]

5. The old "one bad apple" argument

so popular with the regressive party. What the NEA DOES do is allot money to state arts councils, which in turn gives money to regional arts councils and these dollars are so widely distributed that Stopbush, you may very well have received NEA money, just not so directly. Minnesota has a thriving arts community and the money that brings to the state is indisputable. So what we have here is a great argument against Kennedy during his run for the Senate. He would see us deprived of those dollars. That was my motive for posting the votes in the first place.