WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s recent budget proposal included $154.255 million for the National Endowment for the Arts.
That is an effective investment in communities across the nation, Rep. John Yarmuth, D-3rd District, and other members of the Congressional Arts Caucus contend.
Yarmuth and his colleagues last month wrote a letter to the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on Interior, environment and related agencies, Rep. Michael Simpson, urging him to support the president’s request in the fiscal 2014 budget.
There are more than 1,500 arts-related businesses employing nearly 8,000 people in the Louisville area alone, according to Yarmuth’s office. Together with non-profits arts organizations, those businesses generate $260 million in economic activity annually in the metro area.
In their letter to Simpson, R-Idaho, Yarmuth, Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., the arts caucus co-chairman, and other lawmakers pointed out that the NEA budget reached a peak of $176 million in 1992 – more than two decades ago.
The lawmakers noted that Simpson’s subcommittee set aside $170 million for the NEA in fiscal 2011, but that eventually was pared down to $155 million. In fiscal 2012, the arts agency received $146 million.
The automatic cuts under sequestration this year trimmed the NEA budget an additional $7 million.
“According to the NEA, for every one dollar we spend on federal arts initiatives we see eight non-federal dollars leveraged while at the same time enriching our children and communities with access to the arts they might not otherwise have,” the lawmakers wrote.
Some 2,200 NEA grants for everything from reading programs to museums totaled $108 million in fiscal 2012 and went to every congressional district.
“Each year, the nonprofit arts industry generates $135.2 billion in economic activity, and provides 4.13 million full-time jobs” the arts caucus members noted. “At the same time, this industry returns $9.59 billion to the federal government in income taxes.”
The arts also have other measurable benefits, the lawmakers said.
“Students with an education rich in the arts have better grade point averages in core academic subjects, score better on standardized tests, and have lower drop-out rates than students without arts education,” they wrote.
No markups of the fiscal 2014 spending bills have yet been scheduled by the House spending panel.
Pin It
