Attack on the NEA Continues

The Senate spoke clearly last week when it voted to allocate $100 million to the National Endowment for the Arts for fiscal year 1998. This week, the House finally saw the light and went along, reversing its wrongheaded effort to do away with the NEA on cost and cultural grounds. The fate of the agency is now in the hands of a House-Senate conference committee. The modest $100 million in funding seems secure. That, culture lovers, is about the cost of one F-22 Raptor fighter plane.

But while the dollars seem safe, how they are to be used remains a matter of contention. The NEA has waged a 10-year battle with congressional conservatives who accuse the grant-making agency of bad judgment in its funding, declaring the agency out of touch with middle-class American tastes and standards. Unsuccessful in killing the NEA funding, they hope to impose their will on how the money is spent. Specifically, the conservatives are submitting various proposals in Congress to divert NEA funding to the states in the form of block grants, an approach that would break the chain of NEA responsibility.

The endowment already gives 35% of its grant budget directly to state governments. To increase this percentage would effectively do away with one of the NEA’s chief responsibilities, the organization and support of exhibitions and performances on a national and regional basis. More important, NEA funds help generate other money for state arts organizations. Every penny dispensed by the federal endowment must be matched by public or private money. Block-granting would prevent or interfere with this leveraging of other funds for local programs.

In 1963, as the NEA was being formed, President John F. Kennedy called for an “America which will steadily raise the standard of artistic accomplishment and . . . steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens.” This mission should be preserved.