The National Endowment of the Arts

By all rights this thread should make its way down to the bottom of the page within about 20 minutes.

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So, Bush is looking to increase the National Endowment of the Arts' funding by about $20 million dollars - a 16% increase over its 2003 budget, which is a big deal.

Do you think the Government has any business funding the arts? $140 million worth of the arts? How do you think we should determine what we spend the money on?

The new head of the NEA is Dana Gioia, a pretty good poet (a Republican), used to teach at Stanford. He wrote poetry while he worked as the VP of a marketing company, which is kind of cool - he's like Wallace Stevens, in a way. Wallace Stevens is, I think, the greatest American poet of the 20th century (better than Eliot) - Stevens wrote most of his poetry while working as the VP of an insurance company.

I think the arts deserve the funding.

It's tough enough to pursue an art sometimes without having the goverment against you. Also, does the NEA have anything to do with arts programs in the schools?

No, the NEA spends its money for the most part on Initiatives - big projects dedicated to getting the public interested or excited in some type of art or another.

One thing Dana Gioia is heading is something called Shakespeare in Our Communities - publicly-funded performances of Shakespeare (old-school Shakespeare, not 'Baz-Lurhman's All-Lesbian Titiana Andronicus').

It hands out grants to artists the NEA thinks are good. I don't know. I like Gioia, so I think the NEA is good, now. Gioia's going to do cool things, like the Shakespeare program. If the average member of Cornell's art school was in Gioia's position, I'd think funding the NEA was a waste.

Ms. Kroc just donated something like a bajillion dollars to Poetry Magazine (I think that's what its called). Enough money for Poetry Magazine to hire enforcers with bats to make sure that people read their magazine. One could definitely argue that private citizens can take care of funding the arts, on their own.

fuck it, bush is straining my vote. The government that funds the arts while people are uninsured, starving, or homeless is commiting a very serious crime against its own people. The nea is a pointless waste of taxpayer money that i would expect a republican, even a bad one like bush, to cut down. i am not happy about this.

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Originally Posted by frostwolf ex

fuck it, bush is straining my vote. The government that funds the arts while people are uninsured, starving, or homeless is commiting a very serious crime against its own people. The nea is a pointless waste of taxpayer money that i would expect a republican, even a bad one like bush, to cut down. i am not happy about this.

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I think military funding should be cut before funding for the arts which is comparatively small.

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Originally Posted by frostwolf ex

fuck it, bush is straining my vote. The government that funds the arts while people are uninsured, starving, or homeless is commiting a very serious crime against its own people. The nea is a pointless waste of taxpayer money that i would expect a republican, even a bad one like bush, to cut down. i am not happy about this.

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The greatest nations in the world have always funded the arts, one way or another, though.

We pay for a lot of dumb stuff, and people are uninsured, starving, or homeless because the government's not taking in enough money to insure, feed, or house them - not necessarily because we're funding the arts.

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I think military funding should be cut before funding for the arts which is comparatively small.

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Good point - think about how low $140 million is compared to our military budget.

Also, what place do you guys think religious art has amongst NEA-funded projects?

military funding? while i would like them to be more accountable for their purchasing, our superior military technology is something america cannot get lax on. Funding fingerpainting is a bit less important than ensuring national security.

I dont see what the need is to increase funding. I know the NEA funds a lot of those artsy programs you see on PBS, and those are cool... but do we need to increase spending on this?

Religious art is art. I mean, look at the Rennaisance. Perhaps more funding would be lost here though. Maybe it's the fact that it's hardly funded, but art seems pretty underappreciated in the states.

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Originally Posted by Stone

The greatest nations in the world have always funded the arts, one way or another, though.

We pay for a lot of dumb stuff, and people are uninsured, starving, or homeless because the government's not taking in enough money to insure, feed, or house them - not necessarily because we're funding the arts.



Good point - think about how low $140 million is compared to our military budget.

Also, what place do you guys think religious art has amongst NEA-funded projects?

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yes, the greatest nations have always wasted good money, dont see why we cant learn from those mistakes. maybe the money alone is not enough to solve those problems, but wasting the funds is that much more that couldnt go to those, better causes, its like buying toys when you are barely afording rent, luxuries follow necessities.