Arts & International Affairs: 2.3: Autumn/Winter 2017 | Page 51

GOODBYE TO THE NATIONAL
ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS?
NAOMI ADIV
Portland State University
Naomi Adiv is Assistant Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at
Portland State University. She holds a PhD in Geography from the
CUNY Graduate Center (New York City), and a Master’s degree in
Community Development at UC-Davis, with a focus on Community
Arts.
I
n the shadow of the truly egregious policies rolled out by the Trump administration in
their first year in office (anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policies, de-staffing the State
Department into paralysis, shrinking national monuments, strangling the ACA), and a
general tone of chaos surrounding the office of the presidency, a standing threat remains.
That is: among other cuts, freezes and gag orders, the administration has vowed to de-
fund the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Hu-
manities (NEH) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Here, I demon-
strate how current political arguments around defunding the NEA are derived from a
larger political model of dismantling the state apparatus, and purposely conflate fiscal
and symbolic rationales in an attempt to influence cultural policy.
When the plan for cutting federal funding for culture was first announced, defenders
of the NEA, NEH and CPB moved quickly, asking concerned Americans to sign this
petition, call that office, and so forth. Those who are actively fighting the cuts note how
the arts and humanities programs that are supported by these agencies enrich the lives
of everyday Americans in rural and urban areas of all fifty states. Furthermore, defenders
explain, myriad cultural stalwarts—from public libraries to local orchestras to public ra-
dio—are attached to these workhorse agencies, which themselves operate on shoestring
budgets. Lately, the smallness of the NEA budget is taken as a unit of currency, as in:
this [bomber, bureaucratic measure, security detail] is three times the NEA’s whole annual
budget.
Fairly often, the appeal—stop cuts to arts and culture!—includes a graph or pie chart,
demonstrating that the NEA receives an infinitesimal percentage of the Federal Budget.
The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) reports:
The $146 million budget of the National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA) represents just 0.012% (about one one-hundredth of one per-
cent) of federal discretionary spending. The NEA has sustained signif-
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doi: 10.18278/aia.2.3.4